Violetta is a reduction of Verdi’s La traviata, using only three characters: the doomed courtesan Violetta, her idealistic yet immature lover Alfredo, and – surprise! Alfredo’s mother. Yes, Germont père is exchanged…
Heavyweight opera behemoth /institution La traviata is always in need of agile, intelligent reworkings like Longborough’s intriguing new production. Daisy Evans’ incisive update makes Violetta Valéry a Hollywood filmstar in the late Fifties,…
Bruno Ravella’s fast-paced direction for Garsington Opera honours Falstaff’s intense immediacy with a clear emphasis on dynamic physical and visual comedy underpinned by taut stagecraft, while still allowing time for its vital moments of…
Buxton International Festival are currently staging Verdi’s first, 1847 Macbeth, written for the Teatro della Pergola, Florence, a theatre similar in size to the Edwardian jewel-box of Buxton’s own Opera House…
An old man, hunched and stooping, clambers onto a stage. With an air of exhausted bitterness, he smears white paint onto his face, dons a jester’s horned cap, picks up…
Macbeth’s turbulent emotions and fierce storms make it ironically ideally suited to an English summer evening, as the clouds gather menacingly overhead (although I managed to stay dry at Iford).…
Sung with glorious musicality by a fine cast, there is no better chance to get really close to this extraordinary work than Fulham Opera’s clear, dynamic production. Director Fiona Williams’ 1980s…
From its very first chords, Buxton Festival’s Giovanna d’Arco had the shivers rolling down my spine. The curtain lifts on asymmetrical slanting black surfaces, glossy as a grand piano, forming…
Sung in beautifully clear English, Timothy Nelson’s small-scale production for Iford pulls the audience right inside Verdi’s vortex of emotions which keeps Ballo so gripping from beginning to end. Cricket whites,…
Fulham Opera’s Falstaff opens in a modern day pub: crisps are on the table, children are playing with mobile phones, and Falstaff himself is in tracksuit bottoms. It’s effectively a case…