English semi-opera is a strange beast: a story broken up and illustrated by music. Once you settle into it, the shuttling rhythm between music and story is surprisingly and undeniably…
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…
Although I had undoubtedly come to Snape that evening solely in order to hear Ian Bostridge sing Britten and Tippett, I left feeling the most astonished, and exhilarated, by Britten’s…
Director Struan Leslie’s reimagining of Britten’s Les Illuminations song cycle opened the Aldeburgh Festival with an exciting array of circus performers, creating a dreamy evening without plot, but heady with potent mood,…