Year: 2025
Nishat Khan’s Taj Mahal shimmers with beauty, but lacks narrative flow
*** It’s always a bold undertaking to bring a centuries-old tale steeped in history and legend to the operatic stage, and Nishat Khan’s Taj Mahal at Grange Park Opera succeeds spectacularly in one respect: the production is a visual and musical feast of breathtaking imagination. Yet, despite the exquisite craftsmanship and moments of lyrical beauty,…
Garsington Opera’s 2026 season announced
The operas for Garsington Opera’s 2026 Festival, which will run from Wednesday 27 May – Saturday 25 July 2026: Verdi’s La traviata, Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse, and Barry’s The Importance of Being Earnest. La traviataGiuseppe Verdi Conductor – Douglas BoydDirector – Louisa Muller Der RosenkavalierRichard Strauss Conductor – Finnegan Downie DearDirector – Bruno Ravella Il ritorno d’UlisseClaudio Monteverdi Conductor – Laurence CummingsDirector –…
Gorgeously sung, clean and stylised Rodelinda
Garsington Opera **** This is a superbly sung Handel, the drama full of fire, with the complicated baroque story given a clean and stylised theatrical telling. Rodelinda may be a tangled tapestry of dynastic plots, romantic fidelity, and moral reckonings, but at Garsington this summer, the ensemble of exquisite voices cut through the intrigue with…
Les Indes galantes whoops it up at Grange Festival
*** The audience showed itself very enthusiastic for director Bintou Dembélé‘s dance troupe’s hip-hop, whooping, and jumping, swirling and twirling, at the curtain call of this first UK staging of Rameau’s Les Indes galantes. This ‘choreographed concert’ performance has developed from a staged production at the Opéra de Paris back in 2019 and has whooped…
Opera brothers Jack and Sam Furness
It’s a scenario many older siblings might dread; after years of being big brother, finding yourself on the receiving end of being told what to do — by your younger brother. But this isn’t a story about childhood rivalries – it is far, far more dramatic. This is opera. Well, it is really life and…
A mesmerising new production of Pelléas et Mélisande at Longborough Festival Opera
**** Much of the anticipation of the new production of Pelléas et Mélisande was based on how Anthony Negus would take his rightly loyal Wagner audience into Debussy’s world. The theatrical side of the show was always going to be secondary and this indeed proved to be the case. The minimalist Max Johns set design,…
Crowd pleasing Barber delights Longborough audiences
*** If you want a crowd pleaser of a show for a summer afternoon, Longborough’s Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) hits the spot. From its daft contemporary Max Johns’ Spanish setting, raucous translation and slapstick humour, this is fun all the way. We just have the staircase, balcony and outside area of…
Mazeppa, Grange Park Opera
*** Hold on tight, this is quite a ride. This is, to use a cliché, no picnic, despite the long supper interval at this Surrey opera festival. Rather, Grange Park Opera served up a gruesome feast of brutality and betrayal, with lashes of blazing vocal power, and theatrical ferocity. Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa (1883) is based on…
Madama Butterfly, Grange Opera
*** There is only one real test of a successful performance of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. That is whether you leave with a tear in your eye as no matter how much a director may wish to play with you intellectually, this is a work that must succeed emotionally. Yes, for some it is a difficult…
Cowbridge Music Festival 2025
Tickets are now on sale for Cowbridge Music Festival 2025, a celebration of Welsh talent, global voices, and new commissions. The festival take splaces between September 12 and 21 at venues across the Vale of Glamorgan town. The organisers promise this year will present an eclectic and vibrant line-up across ten days this September, blending…