Author: Mike Smith
A Pre-Raphaelite searing delight: Tristan und Isolde, Grange Park Opera
***** Take singers in fabulous voice, the Gascoigne orchestra luxuriating in Wagner’s exquisite music and a visually and theatrically intelligent and beautiful production and you have Grange Park Opera’s life-affirming Tristan und Isolde. From those unmistakable opening sounds rising from the orchestra, under Stephen Barlow’s conducting, in the small and intimate Grange Park auditorium it…
Passion and control; Werther at Grange Park Opera
**** John Doyle’s stark yet still beautiful staging of Massenet’s Werther continued what seems a probably unintended season of productions where the soprano dominates even if, as here, a man has the title role. The Gascoigne Orchestra conducted by Christopher Hopkins, sweeping along with the intense score, makes full affect with Massenet’s grand climatic moments….
Feisty Tosca fights the fascists at Grange Park Opera
**** Grange Park has brought together a powerful cast for this revival of Peter Relton’s 2017 direction of Tosca, with similarly stentorian conducting of the BBC Concert Orchestra by Mark Shanahan. While I am unfamiliar with the 2017 original show that is now revived by Stephen Medcalf, it remains the performance of the cast and…
Götterdämmerung at Longborough: Catharsis in the Cotswolds
**** One important achievement of Amy Lane’s handling of Götterdämmerung is that it allows the singers and musicians to concentrate their talent and skills on Wagner’s Ring Cycle catharsis without too much over direction. In a confined space it seems sensible to concentrate our focus on the unfolding drama which is all contained in the…
NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY AND OPERA NORTH IN TUNE WITH NEW PARTNERSHIP
Newcastle University and Opera North have announced a new three-year collaboration, with the ambition to transform performance practice and audience accessibility through an exchange of knowledge between academic research and the operatic stage. The partnership builds on the two organisations’ history of working together around the Leeds-based opera company’s regular tours to Newcastle and Gateshead….
Longborough Festival Opera cast for its 2023 production of Götterdämmerung
Götterdämmerung (29 May – 6 June 2023). A new production for the 2023 festival, Götterdämmerung marks the epic conclusion to Longborough’s new Ring cycle, following acclaimed productions of Das Rheingold in 2019 , Die Walküre in 2021 and Siegfried in 2022. All productions in the cycle are created especially for Longborough by Amy Lane, Artistic Director…
Magic Flute with chaotic youth energy
** I have a huge fondness for the Magic Flute, Mozart’s fantastical operatic quest, as it was the first opera I ever watched. Daisy Evans’ new production of the Magic Flute has clearly tried to do something a bit different and her production does have a chaotic youthful energy. Julia Sitkovetsky For me, the highpoint…
Four new productions at Grange Festival 2023 plus evenings of jazz
The Grange Festival is presenting four new productions (Così fan tutte, Orfeo ed Euridice / Dido and Aeneas and The Queen of Spades) combining new and established singers, including Dame Josephine Barstow as the Countess in The Queen of Spades. The Festival will have three conductors – Kirill Karabits, Harry Christophers and Paul Daniel –…
Longborough Festival Opera announces 2023 programme, including final part of Ring Cycle
Wagner Götterdämmerung29 May – 6 June 2023 Götterdämmerung marks the epic conclusion to Longborough’s new Ring cycle. All productions in the cycle are created especially for Longborough by Amy Lane, Artistic Director of Copenhagen Opera Festival, and Longborough Music Director and eminent Wagnerian Anthony Negus. The Götterdammerung cast includes the talents of Lee Bisset (Brünnhilde),…
Carmélites to premiere in Glyndebourne Festival’s 2023 season
Barrie Kosky’s highly anticipated new production of Poulenc’s devastatingly powerful operaDialogues des Carmélites will premiere at the 2023 Glyndebourne Festival. It wasoriginally scheduled to appear at the event in 2020 before the season was cancelled due tothe COVID-19 pandemic. Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, Dialogues des Carmélites tells acompelling true story of…