Performer: Raimund Bauer

Andrea Moses transforms Mozart’s opera into a hybrid of Singspiel, stand-up comedy and cabaret, a concept that rarely deepens the work and often competed directly with it.

David Pountney completes his “Verdi trilogy” for the company but although his staging has fluidity, it lacks an explosive ending... and the vocal performances disappoint. 

Musically, WNO gets it right. Straightforward brilliance is the order of the day, and plenty of it.

David Pountney’s 2014 staging was revived in Naples with good singing and empathetic conducting.

When the entire plot is triggered by a freak accident, you can't blame director David Pountney for making Fate itself one of the key characters.  

That both the lead and a second key role were ill and couldn’t sing did not bode well, yet this performance of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera shook up the house nonetheless.