Preview: Waterperry Opera Festival
It’s not every summer England sees a brand new garden opera festival coming to life. Waterperry Opera Festival is not only new, but innovative and ambitious, opening with a range…
Marriage, madness and all that jazz: The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart, Merry Opera
Every time someone updates The Marriage of Figaro, the most surprising thing is the resilience – the insistent, perennial relevance – of this opera’s inner social structure. Whether a production…
Unexpected Mozart in the bagging area: Così fan tutte, Merton Street Opera
Baseless Fabric Theatre have taken Mozart’s Così fan tutte to the streets this summer, in the most literal sense. Their exceptional cast of five fantastic singers, and three brave instrumentalists,…
Duel of duos: Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri, Mascagni’s Zanetto
Mozart wears jeans under his brocade jacket and white wig, and is sometimes found playing with his mobile; Salieri’s ruffled shirt is under a dark modern suit, its folds not…
Who pulls the strings? Mozart’s Magic Flute at Longborough
Like Glyndebourne’s recent Rinaldo, Longborough’s Magic Flute seems to take shape as a young boy’s daydream, or perhaps the world of his storybook coming to life in his imagination. A sense of…
For teenage kicks: Mozart’s Lucio Silla at Buxton
Although it can’t lay claim to the emotional dexterity and acute social awareness of Mozart’s mature works, Lucio Silla is an ambitious piece which demands a great deal of its…
Preview: Opera in the City Festival
The Arts are steadily moving east in London. Nicholas Hytner is launching his new 900-seat theatre at Tower Bridge this autumn: it’s been 80 years since London theatre received such…
Jungle drums beating true: Mozart’s Magic Flute at Iford
Director John Savournin has created a lively, accessible and stripped-down Flute for magical Wiltshire garden opera venue Iford which gives the lovers Tamino and Pamina a clear choice between the superstitious tribal culture of…
A stern Father’s Day treat: Mozart Idomeneo at Garsington
Mozart’s Idomeneo, rè di Creta is a sprawling monster of an opera; messy in its misappropriations of classical myth, and chaotic in the pacing and development of its plot, it fills…
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…