Year: 2021
Cosi under the big top at Longborough
It would have probably been too obvious to cast Don Alfonso as a ring master in the big top seeing we were indeed watching and listening to Cosi in a circus tent at Longborough Festival Opera. Instead, he is a card shark, playing on Guglielomo and Ferrando presumably slightly nouveau twit gullibility to firstly part…
Pountney’s take on Ivan the Terrible at Grange Park Opera
David Pountney production of Ivan the Terrible for Grange Park Opera is an uncharacteristically sedate affair, lacking in the excesses of violence or sex, psychological acrobatics or quirkiness – and for once it could actually have done with some of this. With the pretty obvious exception of making Ivan the Terrible a Stalin figure (some may…
Amadigi weaves modern magic at Garsington Opera
This glorious production of Handel’s Amadigi is both a splendid, spirits (literally) raising experience and why our independent festivals are the shining stars of opera as they have struggled and overcome Covid restrictions. While most of our state funded opera houses and arts companies remained the domain of tumbleweed, Garsington and others have kept opera…