Fulham Opera, noted in recent years for their serious and compelling Wagner and Verdi output, are also not shy of comedy (as demonstrated by their very successful Falstaff). Die Fledermaus…
Saffron Hall, East Anglia’s brightest new star venue on the classical music horizon, is moving with confidence into direct competition with Snape Maltings. Their first fully staged opera, English Touring Opera’s…
As the autumn evenings begin to darken and lengthen, growing chillier and damper, we could all do with a little burst of beauty; and this short programme of three Bach…
Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony no. 8 in B minor and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde received a gleaming treatment from the Philharmonia, conducted by a very athletic Josep Pons. Pons’ sense of…
Usually, a Ring Cycle hits you as a sudden burst of musical and philosophical intensity, its four huge evenings sprawling across one week. In practical terms, your own life ends…
Director Timothy Nelson has created a new performing edition of Henry Purcell’s The Fairy Queen for Iford, which picks out the most familiar scenes and divides them into four “Nights” (the Mechanicals’ rehearsal, Oberon…
Among the many operas in the canon thrumming with drama and violence, Jenůfa remains notably dark, shocking in its bleak brutality, barely relieved by a final discovery of true love which only…
Director John Savournin has created a lively, accessible and stripped-down Flute for magical Wiltshire garden opera venue Iford which gives the lovers Tamino and Pamina a clear choice between the superstitious tribal culture of…
Although his words could have been crisper, all the songs came across with a pleasing sense of flow, Spence’s light lyric tenor happily expanding to the rafters at Snape, when…
Mozart’s Idomeneo, rè di Creta is a sprawling monster of an opera; messy in its misappropriations of classical myth, and chaotic in the pacing and development of its plot, it fills…