A welcome return: Monteverdi’s Ulysses’ Homecoming, English Touring Opera

Saffron Hall, East Anglia’s brightest new star venue on the classical music horizon, is moving with confidence into direct competition with Snape Maltings. Their first fully staged opera, English Touring Opera’s clear and compelling Ulysses’ Homecoming, marked a development from the Saffron Opera Group’s previous concert performances of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre; and, with the…

Kill or be killed: Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, ETO

English Touring Opera gives Gluck’s reformist masterpiece a suitably blood-spattered outing in a production which keeps the opera in touch with its classical roots. Gluck’s reform agenda stands out proudly: his clear, elegant score can sound almost aggressively simple at times, while his streamlined structure almost pushes us out through aria and recitative into the continuous…