Anush Hovhannisyan
Queen of Spades wins hands down, Grange Festival
Clear, unfussy direction, a versatile and attractive set, rich orchestral playing, and singers thrilling in their artistry and authenticity – this was the pleasure of Grange Festival’s Queen of Spades. At first it jars a little, having lots of patriotic Mother Russia sentiment expressed on stage at such a time of imperial warfare against Ukraine,…
Ukrainian opera star Yuriy Yurchuk leads a special one-off fundraising concert in support of Ukraine.
Royal Opera House principal artist and Ukrainian baritone Yuriy Yurchuk will be joined by a host of international singers including Armenian soprano Anush Hovhannisyan and American soprano Alexandria Wregglesworth, accompanied by pianist Ed Batting, for an evening of world-class music in this special one-off fundraising concert. The night will feature a programme of much-loved arias…
A earthy La Boheme that throws away the chocolate box wrapping
Annabel Arden’s 2012 production of La Boheme, now revived by Welsh National Opera for the second offering of its 2022 autumn season, gives its audience a largely straightforward telling of the doomed love affair of Mimi and Rodolfo. The only real “take” on the work is setting the opera in the early 20th century, perhaps…
A psychological journey into Onegin at Opera Holland Park
It is often said that this opera could, perhaps should, be called Tatyana rather than Onegin as she is in many ways the more central (and interesting) of the characters. It is both a strength and weakness of Julia Burbach’s direction that the title character is not only on stage far more than the opera…