Puccini

Welsh singers make Royal Opera history

Operatic history has been made this week with two Welsh singers taking the leading roles in Puccini’s Tosca at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, for the first time. Gwyn Hughes Jones, from Llanbedrgoch, Anglesey and Natalya Romaniw, from Swansea, sang the doomed lovers Mario Cavaradossi and Floria Tosca in the ever popular opera. The run…

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…

If Opera delights its audiences with blossoming talent in Belcombe Court’s gardens

The enthusiastic response by audiences to If Opera’s 2022 season has demonstrated there is clearly an appetite for this repertory ensemble approach by the ambitious rebranded company, formerly Iford Arts. Taking place in the grounds of Belcombe Court no doubt added to the overall enjoyment of the festival experience. But the hearty responses to the…

Opera Park 2022 season announced

Opera Holland Park’s 2022 Season will open on 31 May 2022, with new productions of Eugene Onegin and Carmen. The second half of the 2022 Season will feature the UK premiere of Mark Adamo’s 1998 opera, Little Women, adapted from Louisa May Alcott’s classic coming-of-age novel. Postponed from 2020, Delius’s verismo opera Margot la Rouge…

Natalya Romaniw in La Boheme, ENO

Revivals of Jonathan Miller stagings have been the staple over the past thirty years at ENO. In Miller’s clear-headed production, the 1930s take on tragic young love among Parisian students certainly did not lack any drama. There is much to admire in this revival. Alexander Joel leads an idiomatic performance from both singers and orchestra….