Artiste: Musica Poetica

A musically sensitive account of Monteverdi’s Poppea, with simple staging and 1950s costumes, sees singing triumph noticeably over the relative theatrical inexperience of HGO’s talented young cast. 

A brilliant modern revisioning by Genevieve Raghu, in a superb contemporary translation by Benjamin Hamilton, makes Don Giovanni feel more relevant than ever for the Tinder generation and their disposable approach to love. 

Hampstead Garden Opera’s new staging of Xerxes is slick and contemporary with a well thought-out re-interpretation of the plot, offering a fresh perspective to the opera.

La Calisto is a delicious mash-up of two classical legends: Jupiter’s seduction of Diana’s acolyte Calisto and Diana’s own romance with the shepherd Endymion. The plot is helter-skelter, Anne Ridler’s translation of Giovanni Faustini’s libretto is sassy and fun. I can’t imagine being more entertained by an evening’s chamber opera.

What do you go to the opera for? The question has a thousand answers, but if you’re going to Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, the chances are that you’re expecting some frothy romantic comedy, some elegant music and a bunch of tunes that will stay in your head when the show is over.

There’s something pretty special about going to see one of the very first operas ever written. It’s particularly special if you love the rhythms of renaissance dance music, the harmonies of polyphonic choral music and if, as I am, you are an admirer of Claudio Monteverdi’s vocal writing: it’s quite plausible to argue that he remains unmatched in his ability to spin a beautiful vocal thread and wea