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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
“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…
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…