Reviews
Genuinely funny and beautifully sung, Il turco in Italia, Glyndebourne Autumn Season 2024
15th October 2024Il turco in Italia, Gioachino Rossini For the first time revived at Glyndebourne, the 2001 production by French director Mariame Clément is truly entertaining and very enjoyable. The concept of the piece revolves around a contemporary writer, Prosdocimo, suffering from writer’s block, who flips through a travel magazine and creates all sorts of characters and […]
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New cast members delight in Il triticco, Puccini, Welsh National Opera
1st October 2024This production of Il trittico belonged to the new cast members, who brought even more energy and vibrancy to the stage. While the original cast was impressive, the new lineup delivered unforgettable performances across all three operas. The entire cast was superb, but there were definitely standout performances that made this revival really shine. Andrés […]
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Welsh National Opera, Rigoletto: Latex, knickers and lots of wigs. Thankfully some very fine singing.
22nd September 2024It is quite an achievement, making the womanising Duke of Mantua the only likeable character in Rigoletto. This was despite Raffaele Abete not giving the finest of the vocal performances of the evening. They belonged to the Rigoletto of Daniel Luis de Vicente and Gilda from Soraya Mafi. Admittedly Abete was not the originally cast […]
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Pergolesi’s L’Olimpiade, Vache Baroque
3rd September 2024Vache Baroque is now established as a late summer treat, with its combination of interesting and well-performed operatic choices and fun associated events in the grand house’s grounds. This year’s choice is Pergolesi’s L’Olimpiade and the setting of the 17th-century Buckinghamshire elegant building provides a suitable backdrop for this piece of baroque brightness – and […]
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Tosca, Choregies d’Orange, Théâtre Antique. Bryn Terfel, Roberto Alagna and Aleksandra Kurzak
3rd September 2024The Chorégies d’Orange closed triumphantly on July 22, with a semi-staged version of Giacomo Puccini ‘s masterpiece Tosca, to which the festival wanted to pay tribute in this centenary year. The venue was full, especially since the cast assembled in the Provençal city by Jean-Louis Grinda had enough to make lyrical art aficionados from all […]
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Waterperry Opera Festival 2024
25th August 2024Waterperry Opera Festival made the most of the glorious Waterperry Gardens and the elegant Georgian house for a veritable musical feast of summer lushness. This young, dynamic festival has developed into a real summer highlight. The Festival makes excellent use of the different spaces available for performance with the elegant period house that edges the […]
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If Opera: Lucia di Lammermoor and Die Fledermaus
25th August 2024Whether it is the most lavishly funded opera house or an independent summer festival, opera should be about the singing. Production qualities are important but must be seen as secondary. Sadly, this is not often the case. However, at the fascinating If Opera this short season you can see a performance of Donizetti’s Lucia di […]
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Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Offenbach Salzburg Festival
23rd August 2024***** The delight in concept over content marked the approach of French director Mariame Clément to the difficult to stage Tales of Hoffman. Here she decided to make it a drunken, fallen, film director showing reels of his work with women with whom he had disastrously fallen in love. It is ultimately revealed that they […]
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Don Giovanni, Salzburg Festival
23rd August 2024The employment of artists with alleged links with Putin grabs headlines in the opera world. Thus, the decision of the Salzburg Festival to have Teodor Currentzis in the pit was sure to be controversial. However, if it was there was no indication of this from the audience at his return to conduct Don Giovanni, this […]
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A novel take on La bohème
8th August 2024Longborough Festival Opera **** As the summer sun beat down on the rolling grounds of Longborough, this highly enjoyable new production of La bohème opened in a somewhat unconventional manner: a Christmas carol. Instead of the familiar burst of an energetic orchestra, plunging the listener directly into the chilly world of the Parisian bohemians, it […]
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