The Invisible, Bush Theatre, for TheatreCat.com
“When I was growing up the poor were seen as unfortunates. Now they’re seen as manipulative. Grasping. Scroungers. It’s very sad.” So reflects Shaun (Niall Buggy), a charming, penniless old…
Desire, deception, and death: Birtwistle’s The Corridor and The Cure
The most interesting thing about The Corridor, in classical terms, is the moment, and mood, that David Harsent (librettist) and Harrison Birtwistle (composer) have chosen to dramatise. So many treatments…
The power of love: Between Worlds, ENO /Barbican
A new co-commissioned production from English National Opera and the Barbican sees Tansy Davies tackle the most harrrowing of modern subjects: 9/11. The opera itself becomes a ritual, an act…
Philip Ridley’s Radiant Vermin for Theatrecat
Radiant Vermin has two strengths. One is its macabre twist, which I won’t spoil for you: but just watch Philip Ridley’s twist grow, strengthen and become ever more prominent, with…
Once bitten, twice intrigued: Shchedrin’s The Left-Hander (Levsha)
Shchedrin’s opera is itself, charmingly, a present: the score is dedicated to Valery Gergiev for his 60th birthday, and Shchedrin has filled it with musical references to favourite composers, making…
Seeing is believing: The Blank Canvas by Spyros Syrmos
Charles Bonnet syndrome gives its patients random or recurring hallucinations while they are entirely conscious, without upsetting their mental balance, although the very appearance of the hallucinations can naturally lead…
Biting the hand that feeds: Madame X at Grimeborn
Masetto (now an impoverished immigrant artist, more reminiscent of Puccini’s poet Rodolfo than Mozart’s Masetto) and Zerlina (all girlish scruples definitely removed, along with most of her charm) encounter Don Giovanni…
A gloriously inventive night at Tête à Tête: Psyche, On the Axis Of This World and Encounters In The Republic Of Heaven
Psyche – Alex Groves Psyche asks us to get up close and personal with opera (alone, barefoot and blindfolded) for ten minutes, and the results are, to me, spine-tingling. On…
The Shetland Isles are “Full of Noises”: Njogel at Tête à Tête
Njogel opens with spectacular beauty, with a small wooden ship bobbing up and down along a ship’s boom, its furled sail representing the waves of the sea around the Shetland…
Yes and Noh: Spirit Harbour by Opera Kitsune at Tête à Tête
A stylised and intense form of high drama, Japanese Noh is undoubtedly as well suited to operatic treatment as Greek tragedy. Powerful emotions, violent actions and brutal social strictures abound…