Monsters of the mind: Idomeneo at the Buxton Festival

By Mark Pullinger, 08 July 2018

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“Madeleine Pierard sang a terrific, spitfire Elettra, a fearless performance”

Reviewed at Buxton Opera House, Buxton on 8 July 2018

Mozart, Idomeneo, re di Creta

Buxton Festival Chorus

Nicholas Kok, Conductor

Stephen Medcalf, Director

Isabella Bywater, Set Designer

Paul Nilon, Idomeneo

Rebecca Bottone, Ilia

Heather Lowe, Idamante

Madeleine Pierard, Elettra

Ben Thapa, Arbace

Luke Sinclair, High Priest

Julian Debreuil, The Oracle of Neptune

Northern Chamber Orchestra

To be or not to be: Hamlet returns to the Buxton Festival

Mark Pullinger, 16th July

After 45 years, Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet returns to Buxton in a gripping, psychological staging by Jack Furness.

****1

Buxton Festival celebrates 40th anniversary with Eugene Onegin

Robert Gainer, 6th July

Every July, Buxton’s charming opera house hosts an international festival of opera, literature and the arts. This year the festival opened with a strong familiar favourite, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.

****1

Revolutionary jungle fever: Verdi's Alzira in Buxton

Mark Pullinger, 7th July

A spirited account of Verdi's early opera in its first professional UK staging, nowhere near as “ugly” as Verdi would have had us believe.

****1

Knives out in Verona: Capuleti at Buxton Festival

Dominic Lowe, 9th July

Stephanie Marshall's Romeo and Sarah-Jane Brandon's Giulietta make this production of Bellini's version of Romeo and Juliet utterly compelling.

****1

Taj Mahal by Nishat Khan premieres at Grange Park Opera

David Karlin, 10th July

Scion of generations of sitar players, Nishat Khan is the perfect person to tell the "greatest love story never told" behind India's most iconic building.

***11

Aleko on the Arno: Bryn Terfel leads fine new GPO double bill

Roy Westbrook, 6th June

An unlikely pairing opens Grange Park Opera's season, the two works united by the dominant central character of each opera – Sir Bryn Terfel.

****1

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Mark Pullinger

Mark has been a Bachtrack editor since 2014. He is also an experienced critic, writing hundreds of reviews for the site, as well as a freelancer writing for other magazines and newspapers. He also writes programme notes and blogs on Substack. Mark has a particular passion for the operas of Verdi as well as Russian and French repertoire. Outside the concert hall and opera house, Mark enjoys cooking and travel and is probably at his happiest let loose in a French patisserie or a Viennese coffee house.