Reviews
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…
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…
Holland Park’s Wagnerian maiden voyage with The Flying Dutchman
**** Opera Holland Park’s choice of The Flying Dutchman for its first foray into the Wagnerian world (or cult) is both inspired and courageous. Inspired as it is Wagner’s most accessible opera (and short). Courageous as it demands vast amounts of drama, and much of that comes from the orchestra which has to be limited…
Wagner’s dynastic dystopia Wahnfried UK premier at Longborough
*** This is a no-holds barred nightmare of red velvet and megalomania. It is the story of what happens to a family after the death of its head, its Master, Richard Wagner, in attempting to maintain and fulfil his legacy against a backdrop of the darkest days in modern European history. At its core is…
Madama Butterfly at the New Theatre, Cardiff
With directors jostling to reinterpret Puccini, Ellen Kent’s Madama Butterfly at the New Theatre, Cardiff was a breath of fresh air—traditional, heartfelt, and free of gimmickry. At a time when many stagings feel the need to modernise, deconstruct, or appease contemporary anxieties, Kent offers something increasingly rare: an unembellished, faithful telling that allows Puccini’s haunting…
Panig! Attack!!
WNO Youth Opera New Theatre, Cardiff Hats off to the large (very) number of young people who formed two casts to give two polished performances of this feelgood show. The bilingual production takes the trope of two different groups who have been separated, try to a come together, are divided by what they see as…
Peter Grimes, Welsh National Opera
I start with a confession: I am no longer a Britten virgin. Despite all my years of going to WNO productions I had never seen a Britten, not even their recently acclaimed Death in Venice. In part this was because Britten did not appeal to me, so I was both curious and trepidatious to see…