If only all history lessons were this much fun!

By Mark Pullinger, 10 August 2014

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“Ottavio Dantone ensured scintillating playing from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment”

Reviewed at Glyndebourne Opera House, Glyndebourne on 9 August 2014

Handel, Rinaldo

Ottavio Dantone, Conductor

Robert Carsen, Director

Gideon Davey, Set Designer

Iestyn Davies, Rinaldo

Tim Mead, Goffredo

Christina Landshamer, Almirena

Karina Gauvin, Armida

Joshua Hopkins, Argante

Anthony Roth Costanzo, Eustazio

James Laing, A Christian Magician

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Handel’s Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno returns to Rome

Pia Maltri, 7th April

Robert Carsen’s staging of Handel's oratorio arrives, via Salzburg, in the city where Handel composed it in 1707.

****1

A sensational Kátya Kabanová in Brno shows Janáček at his very best

Dominic Lowe, 3rd March

A revival of Robert Carsen's production at the Janáček Festival Preview benefits from an excellent cast and exemplary playing from the house ensemble.

*****

The game of love: Robert Carsen’s new Così fan tutte at La Scala

Laura Servidei, 8th November

Alexander Soddy leads a great cast in a clever, supremely entertaining new production in Milan.

****1

Canadian Opera's Orfeo returns elegant, restrained and very satisfying

John Gilks, 9th October

The restrained beauty of Robert Carsen’s production of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice is matched by musical elegance in its revival current revival at the Four Seasons Centre.

*****

Eugene Onegin revival fails to find the magic spark in Toronto

John Gilks, 2nd May

Robert Carsen’s 1997 production of Eugene Onegin has aged remarkably well but the latest Canadian Opera Company revival of it doesn’t quite recapture its magic.

***11

To the Moon and back: Janáček’s Mr Brouček visits Berlin

Elena Luporini, 16th March

Robert Carsen's new production of Janáček’s The Excursions of Mr Brouček for the Staatsoper Unter den Linden scores a well-deserved success thanks to a stellar – or rather, lunar – conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.

*****

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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.

Rinaldo at Glyndebourne: If only all history lessons were this much fun!