Sellar's half-baked semi-staging mars a fine Vixen

By Hugo Shirley, 13 October 2017

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“one will rarely hear this glorious score better played”

Reviewed at Philharmonie: Großer Saal, Berlin on 12 October 2017

Janáček, The Cunning Little Vixen

Sir Simon Rattle, Conductor

Lucy Crowe, Vixen

Gerald Finley, Forester

Paulina Malefane, Mrs Paškova

Angela Denoke, Fox

Anna Lapkovskaja, Lapák

Burkhard Ulrich, Mosquito, Schoolmaster

Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Harašta

Sir Willard White, Badger, Parson

Berliner Philharmoniker

Vocalconsort Berlin

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Hugo Shirley

Hugo Shirley is a Berlin-based writer and musicologist. He has written widely as a critic in the UK, including for The Spectator, the Financial Times and Daily Telegraph, and has held editorial posts at both Opera and Gramophone. He was editor of 30-Second Opera (Ivy Press, 2015) and has a PhD in musicology from King's College London, where his thesis focused on Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s Die Frau ohne Schatten.

Blurred lines: Peter Sellars' half-baked semi-staging mars a fine performance of The Cunning Little Vixen