The curate’s night out: the Tête-à-Tête Clubnight at Egg, London
Although the first piece (One Day This Will be Long Ago) was difficult and the second (China Doll) plain agony to sit through, the Tête-à-Tête Clubnight at Egg, London finished with…
The Boys from Bohème: An Unexpected Opera Chat Show
I have to start this review with a confession: the more you go to Unexpected Opera shows, the harder it gets to remain objective about them. As I’ve now seen…
Gasp, cry, laugh: Puccini’s Il Tabarro & Gianni Schicchi, Fulham Opera
First, darkness; next, grief and spiritual transcendence; finally, ribald laughter. For his penultimate work, Puccini designed a trio of short one-act operas, Il Trittico, to take his audience on an…
Simple and emotive: English Touring Opera’s La bohème at Hackney Empire
Puccini’s great crowd-pleaser La bohème is more than familiar to audiences all over the world, but this tale of poverty-stricken love and death remains a compelling watch, whether you are…
Some enchanted evening: Puccini’s La rondine at Iford
From the opening party at Magda’s house, all fairylights and champagne, to the sultry Paris dive where students are later discovered toasting new-found love in absinthe, La rondine is no “poor…
A Tosca which falls flat? Dyka /Alagna at the ROH
Oksana Dyka sang at the 2005 inauguration of President Viktor Yushchenko (or so Wikipedia confidently assures me). Only two months afterwards, she would star in her very first Tosca. Nine years…
Back to the grindstone: The Miller’s Wife at Grimeborn
“The windmill goes round and round… It is a simple life”. The Miller‘s Wife opens, and almost closes, with a similar scene: the miller’s wife in the garden of the mill, while…