The Royal College of Music, with an enthusiastic and talented student cast, gave Giove in Argo a dramatic rebirth at the Britten Theatre. It was impossible not to enjoy the sheer…
Like buses, you can wait many years to see a pasticcio, and then several come at once. Having only just reviewed the marvellous L’oracolo in Messenia by Vivaldi, I was…
The English Concert play beautifully, the chorus is in superb voice, but a disjointed cast of unconvincing singers mean Hercules never reaches heroic heights. Adapting Sophocles’ Women of Trachis, Handel’s librettist…
Like a vast, bejewelled procession through the streets of a Baroque city, L’oracolo in Messenia moves slowly, but constantly fascinates, glittering with vocal ornament and glowing with emotions: rage, lust, greed,…
A consciously courtly entertainment, Platée balances on the precarious premise that, if the gods can be allowed to laugh at mortals, so a sense of humour can be a divine attribute,…
Ottone was a great success for Handel in his lifetime, and the ravishing beauty of its music and exciting, dynamic plot shows us why. The consistently high production values of…
A bright Alpine vision of fresh air, blue skies and snowy mountains: Bampton Classical Opera’s production of Gluck’s Il Parnaso Confuso, designed and directed by Jeremy Gray, moves Mount Parnassus closer…
Closing your eyes while listening, you could easily imagine yourself in a gilt-edged salon, with Her Highness Mademoiselle Marie de Lorraine, Duchess of Guise, peer of France, princess of Joinville,…
Five hours with five counter tenors: a virtuoso stand-off which impresses, even astounds, but ultimately exhausts even the most dedicated audience by its refusal to cut a single note of…
In 1701, Daniel Purcell wrote his Judgement of Paris for a competition to encourage the development of English opera, created by Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax and his friends. Purcell’s entry…