Reviews
Pathos and hilarity meet at IF Opera’s new home.
IF Opera – Rigoletto & Orpheus in the Underworld, Church Farm, 2025 IF Opera’s move from the stately lawns of Belcombe Court to the working idyll of Church Farm has brought with it a pleasing blend of rustic charm and artistic ambition – plus the novelty of rescue donkeys grazing contentedly in the neighbouring field…
A shocking Lohengrin saved by glorious singing and fabulous conducting, Bayreuth Festival
*** Some productions jolt you like a live cable. Unfortunately, the thematic current running through Yuval Sharon’s Lohengrin at Bayreuth wasn’t the thrilling charge of Wagner’s drama—it was the sort of shock that a concept can be so overdone, leaving your battery flat. Elza van den Heever , Piotr Beczała Staged in 2018 but revived…
A laughing cow and glorious musicianship, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Bayreuth Festival
***** Wagner is not often associated with levity, but Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg remains his great comic outlier: a sprawling, richly textured celebration of art, tradition, and renewal. That didn’t stop director Matthias Davids from turning it into something resembling an agricultural show —complete with hay bales, Merkel look-alikes, and, in Act III, a giant…
A celebratory evening with Dido and Aeneas, Longborough Festival Opera
*** From the moment the audience entered the auditorium for the company’s Emerging Artists production this was clearly going to be a fun evening, even if the story is, of course, one of great tragedy. Musicians from the early music ensemble Barokksolistene walked up and down the side aisles, playing their instruments, and chatting with…
Fallen women: Cavalleria rusticana and Suor Angelica, Dorset Festival Opera
**** The double bill of one act operas is given a linked theme of fallen women through a clever inclusion of the nun as young girl and her lover making a making a brief appearance in Cavalleria rusticana, presumably before her convent days in Suor Angelica. Paul Carr’s direction also has nuns in the Sicilian…
A speakeasy Rigoletto at Dorset Opera Festival
**** Dorset Opera performing at the Coade Theatre at Bryanston School is more than an offering of good quality musical theatre. It is a showcase of some very strong professional singers and for the young people who have taken part in the summer school at the Blandford Forum. The combination is exhilarating. For this production…
Elegant Bellini at West Green House Opera
**** While musicianship and artistry remain the most essential elements of any opera experience, the importance of ambiance and the pleasure of the venue cannot be denied. West Green House Opera combines superb performances by both young and seasoned singers, a commitment to musical excellence from its players, and an idyllic setting in a Hampshire…
Keenlyside and Pritchard shine in vintage Verdi at Grange Park
**** There was something slightly surreal about watching a nearly 30-year-old David Pountney production of Simon Boccanegra at Grange Park Opera, with props from his latest work for the festival — his brooding new staging of Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa—sitting off to the side of the theatre in the woods. As a collision of old and new,…
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,…
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…