Opera Rara: Donizetti's Les Martyrs a revelation

By Mark Pullinger, 05 November 2014

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Reviewed at Royal Festival Hall, London on 4 November 2014

Donizetti, Les Martyrs

Sir Mark Elder, Conductor

Michael Spyres, Polyeucte

Joyce El-Khoury, Pauline

David Kempster, Sévère

Brindley Sherratt, Félix

Wynne Evans, Néarque

Clive Bayley, Callisthènes

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Opera Rara Chorus

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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.