Month: November 2021
Singers and orchestra save this show from being a ring of dire
I sometimes wonder whether Wagner sets some sort of challenge from beyond the grave on the Ring Cycle to test its strength. The challenge being: who can make such a pig’s ear of a production to destroy the magnificence of the music and the impact of the story on audiences. This time it was down…
A large tot of happiness from ENO’s Pinafore
HMS Pinafore at English National Opera is a joyous entertainment that revels in the humour while ensuring the highest standards of musicianship. It is, shock horror, enjoyable. Yet it is a mark of our strange times when performing Gilbert and Sullivan seems quite brave and some companies would fret themselves onto a woke apoplexy performing…
Jack Furness to produce Rusalka at Garsington
Jack Furness is to take over from Michael Boyd to produce Garsington Opera’s 2022 Rusalka. Due to ill health, director Michael Boyd has had to withdraw from the production that was originally scheduled for summer 2020. Jack Furness will make his Garsington Opera debut. The production will have designs by Tom Piper. Douglas Boyd, Artistic…
Opera North announces winter season
Questions of power and identity, love and loss, will be coming to theatres across the North of England in the new year as Opera North opens its winter season with two new productions, while also offering another chance to see its new production of Carmen which premiered in September. The Company’s eagerly-awaited concert staging of…
Opera Holland Park unleashes The Bear
Opera Holland Park’s production of William Walton’s take on the Chekhov comedy The Bear is being screened online during November on a “pay what you feel” basis. Filmed and recorded live on location in Stone House over two days in April 2021, Walton’s witty one-act opera reunites the cast and creative team of Opera Holland…