A Ring around the world
Two exciting things are happening this Sunday, 13th November. In London, Regents Opera open their brand new, pared-down orchestration of Wagner’s Das Rheingold at Freemasons Hall, Covent Garden, the start…
More smoke than fire: Die Walküre, Grimeborn
Grimeborn are following up their fantastic 2019 Das Rheingold (see my previous review) with Die Walküre this year. Moving to the gorgeous Hackney Empire, with the Orpheus Sinfonia comfortably ensconced in the pit, this production…
Grimeborn’s glittering treasure: Das Rheingold, Wagner
The Ring Cycle is opera’s biggest box set: a sixteen-hour binge of dwarves, nymphs, dragons, gods, heroes and monsters, all suspended inside one of the greatest philosophical conundrums expressed by…
Enthralling brain and ear alike: Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, Saffron Opera Group
Saffron Opera Group’s Ring Cycle finally culminated in a direct, satisfyingly shattering Götterdämmerung, in which we felt the world change as the story left the gods behind, and brought the…
Heartfelt heroics: a triumphant Siegfried from Saffron Opera Group
Since their affecting Das Rheingold and resplendent Die Walküre in 2016, the Saffron Opera Group’s Ring Cycle has become something of a talking point in Wagnerian circles. Using a local orchestra, but attracting…
Batman robbing: Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, Fulham Opera
Fulham Opera, noted in recent years for their serious and compelling Wagner and Verdi output, are also not shy of comedy (as demonstrated by their very successful Falstaff). Die Fledermaus…
A Ring to keep you thinking: Wagner’s Die Walküre, Saffron Opera Group
Usually, a Ring Cycle hits you as a sudden burst of musical and philosophical intensity, its four huge evenings sprawling across one week. In practical terms, your own life ends…
THE RINSE CYCLE Charing Cross Theatre, WC2 – for TheatreCat
Some people get terribly, passionately serious about Wagner. This shouldn’t be a problem: truly great music of all kinds tends to attract obsessive adulation, especially whenever the artist is a…
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…
Unexpected Opera’s The Rinse Cycle
“A Ring Cycle set in a launderette? Well, I’ve seen weirder productions…” Unexpected Opera’s approachable and slick reduction of Wagner’s epic starts on a characteristically unstuffy note, and proceeds to…