Alcina: A bewitching start to the Aix-en-Provence Festival

By Mark Valencia, 03 July 2015

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“da capo ornamentations were teased out of her... with a deft placement of [a] feather duster”

Reviewed at Grand Théâtre de Provence, Aix-en-Provence on 2 July 2015

Handel, Alcina

Andrea Marcon, Conductor

Katie Mitchell, Director

Chloe Lamford, Set Designer

Laura Hopkins, Costume Designer

Patricia Petibon, Alcina

Philippe Jaroussky, Ruggiero

Anna Prohaska, Morgana

Katarina Bradić, Bradamante

Anthony Gregory, Oronte

Krzysztof Bączyk, Melisso

Musica Aeterna

Freiburg Baroque Orchestra

The Royal Opera stages its first Makropulos Case

Mark Valencia, 4th November

Katie Mitchell wheels out her tired old tropes in The Makropulos Case, redeemed by its musical performances.

***11

Nadine Sierra leads a musically formidable Lucia di Lammermoor

Mark Valencia, 19th April

Katie Mitchell's provocative staging is revived to great effect, elevated by glorious music-making led by Nadine Sierra's sensational Lucia.

****1

272 years on, Handel's Theodora comes home to Covent Garden

David Karlin, 31st January

Superb singing from Joyce DiDonato and Jakub Józef Orliński lights up a curate's egg staging from Katie Mitchell.

***11

Royal Opera's A New Dark Age is a powerful cantata for our time

Jenny Camilleri, 24th October

The Royal Opera House responds to current global turmoil with a double bill by four women composers. Baritone Peter Brathwaite delivers a tour de force in The Knife of Dawn and A New Dark Age is a powerful emotional journey.

***11

Less than the sum of its parts: Zauberland at the Linbury

David Karlin, 15th October

Fine performances by Julia Bullock and Cédric Tiberghien can't make up for the confusion of a fragmented, allusive narrative.

**111

“Soap opera at its best”: Katie Mitchell's Jenůfa

Nicolas Nguyen, 6th October

Katie Mitchell's second production of Jenůfa is a straightforward, effective reading of the libretto well supported by excellent singing actors.

****1

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Mark Valencia

Mark has worked in arts journalism for four decades, both as a writer and as a French-English translator. Nowadays he focuses his energies on reviewing opera and music. Mark also writes for Opera magazine and for Musical America as a correspondent for Europe and the UK.