A mortal nothingness: Verdi's Requiem at Westminster Cathedral

By Olivia Bell, 20 September 2018

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“This was a quartet singing for their lives, for their souls”

Reviewed at Westminster Cathedral, London on 18 September 2018

Verdi, Messa da Requiem

Corinne Winters, Soprano

Ann Hallenberg, Mezzo-soprano

Edgaras Montvidas, Tenor

Gianluca Buratto, Bass

Monteverdi Choir

Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique

Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Conductor

A triumph against the odds: Les Troyens at the BBC Proms

Mark Valencia, 3rd September

Dinis Sousa doesn't put a foot wrong as the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and Monteverdi Choir give a performance of startling virtuosity at the end of a European tour.

*****

Prom 59: Berlioz with a bronze glow

Mark Pullinger, 2nd September

To mark the 150th anniversary of the composer's death, Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts the opera charting the escapades of the Italian goldsmith and sculptor.

****1

Byron's Harold the unlikely star in Gardiner's Berlioz Prom

Mark Pullinger, 5th September

Antoine Tamestit takes a peripatetic approach to Byron's brooding hero, while Joyce DiDonato dies – twice – as Cleopatra and Dido.

*****

Prom 31: An intoxicating La Damnation de Faust

Mark Valencia, 8th August

An unapologetic treat at the Proms and a composition of immediate appeal.

****1

Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette with the ORR

Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres, 30th July

Prom 20 proved an exhilarating journey, featuring Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette as one of the key works of this year’s BBC Proms' Shakespeare 400 celebrations.

****1

Gardiner and his Romantic Revolutionaries pack a punch

Alexander Hall, 9th August

A Franco-German alliance of trailblazing symphonies from the early 19th century performed with style by Sir John Eliot Gardiner's own Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique band of musicians.

****1

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Olivia Bell

Olivia has recently graduated as Senior choral Scholar from Queens' College, Cambridge, where she read English and became Culture Editor at the Tab. A freelance soprano, she currently works as a content editor at the Telegraph.