Performer: David Afkham

Presented without staging, Seattle Opera’s concert Daphne places Strauss’ extreme vocal demands and saturated orchestral writing in sharp relief, offering a high-risk encounter with a rarely heard late opera.

María Dueñas and Saioa Hernández anchor a Spanish programme in New York marked by a Hollywood detour. 

Berg's concerto “To the Memory of an Angel” is played with heart-melting beauty; David Afkham and the Orchestre national de Lyon offer pleasant, but unmemorable, Beethoven and Brahms. 

In music of Mahler and Brahms, David Afkham, a gifted young German conductor, was not afraid to bring forward a personal view

David Afkham scored a successful CSO debut in Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony and Beethoven First Piano Concerto with Emanuel Ax.

Tom Cairns’ Glyndebourne production features svelte costumes and sets, yet – unlike Verdi’s response to Marie Duplessis’ fate – Violetta’s tale left me entirely unmoved.