Fresh peaches of temptation: Britten’s Albert Herring at Buxton
July brings a flurry of festivals to the exquisite Georgian spa town: not just the opera, literature, jazz and other music of the Buxton International Festival (soon to celebrate its…
Music more than words: Britten and Tippett at the Aldeburgh Festival
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…
Starting as you mean to go on: Britten’s Les Illuminations at Aldeburgh Festival
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,…
Season preview for Culture Whisper: Glyndebourne 2016
Melly Still’s magical production of Janáček‘s The Cunning Little Vixen (revival, 2012) is back, the only opera I know to have been born from a comic strip. Still’s vision balances a…
Survivor’s guilt: Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, Guildhall School
The Rape of Lucretia finds Britten trying to come to terms with World War Two, and his own absence from the action as a conscientious objector, by evoking ideas of…
A very wicked village: Britten’s Albert Herring
“Scorn the sweetmeats of temptation!”, warns Lady Billows, as the village of Loxford gathers to crown its May King – a King, because so many village maidens have failed to…
Midsummer Night Fever: Trinity Laban’s 1970s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Oberon reaches near-Bowie levels of magnificence in a feather-fringed fur coat, PVC trousers and glam rock makeup; Tytania shimmers in a pink evening gown and boa worthy of any cabaret…