Britten's Curlew River opens Presteigne Festival

By Peter Reynolds, 27 August 2013

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Reviewed at St Andrew's Church, Presteigne on 22 August 2013

Beamish, Hagar in the Wilderness

Britten, Curlew River, church parable

Nova Music Opera

George Vass, Conductor

Mark Milhofer, Madwoman

Owen Gilhooly-Miles, Abraham

Christopher Foster, Traveller

Stephen Holloway, Abbot

Kirsty Hopkins, Hagar

Edmund Hastings, Gabriel

Glyndebourne’s first Tosca: vocally strong but imperfect

David Karlin, 21st May

Ted Huffman brings some interesting ideas to his first Glyndebourne production. Excellent singing is let down by indifferent physical acting.

***11

The ears have it: Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas on the Cutty Sark

Mark Valencia, 21st May

Come away fellow sailors, your anchors be weighing! All board the Cutty Sark for a semi-staging of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists.

****1

The Drover's Wife brings Aboriginal Dreaming to opera audiences

Jeremy Eccles, 16th May

Emerging from different incarnations of Leah Purcell’s play, George Palmer’s opera develops traditional Dreaming elements from Aboriginal mythology, premiering in Brisbane.

****1

Orlando revisited: Olga Neuwirth’s Woolf adaptation comes to Berlin

Elena Luporini, 16th May

The German premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s Orlando at the Komische Oper cements it as a postmodern grand opéra – for better or for worse.

***11

Anna Netrebko gatecrashes Riccardo Chailly’s La Scala farewell

Laura Servidei, 16th May

Riccardo Chailly’s final new production as artistic director is a celebration of Verdi and of a conductor whose relationship with the Milanese audience has clearly deepened over the years.

*****

Iolanta paired with Luonnotar in dramatic Helsinki double bill

No’a L. bat Miri, 15th May

In Helsinki, Antony McDonald pairs Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta with a staged version of Sibelius’ tone poem Luonnotar, brilliantly voiced by soprano Silja Aalto.

*****

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Peter Reynolds

Peter Reynolds was a composer and writer on music living in Cardiff. He was a part-time member of staff at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and, in 2009, published a history of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Very sadly he passed away on 11th October 2016.