Khovanskygate is about the dreadfulness and possible glory of being Russian
Within the space of a few weeks we have had the rare chance of seeing the two great torsos of…
The snobbery and sweaty brows of watching opera in the cinema
I remain puzzled that, so far as I know, no daily or weekly paper carries reviews of the New York…
ENO's Rodelinda: near-perfect singing, perfectly gimmicky direction
I wasn’t going to write about Handel’s Rodelinda, wasn’t even intending to go, but thanks to the kindness of the…
Don Giovanni at his unsexiest
Every time there’s a new production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni I have to ask the same question: why is this…
Your best YouTube operatic experience ever
Anyone who frequents the internet will have come across YouTube and soon learned that what may have been planned as…
Overrated Strauss vs underrated Gluck
This is the first of my more-or-less monthly columns, the idea of which is to report on operatic events other…
The state of opera today (it's not good)
I’ve been hoping that in this, the last of my weekly columns on opera, I would be able to strike…
Parsifal has anxiety, rage, near-madness — unfortunately the Royal Opera's version doesn't
Debussy’s description of the music of Parsifal as being ‘lit up from behind’ is famous; less so is Wagner’s own…
Should we watch the second act of Tristan und Isolde (without the first or the third)?
There aren’t many operas from which you can extract a single act and make a concert of it, in fact…
Opera review: The Barbican's Albert Herring was a perfect evening
Of this year’s three musical birthday boys, Wagner has fared, in England, surprisingly well, Verdi inexplicably badly, and Britten, as…
Baroque opera shows vicious people can sometimes be happy — and we're glad they are
Visits by English Touring Opera are always to be looked forward to, but this autumn it has surpassed itself with…
The ENO's Magic Flute ignores everything that makes Mozart's opera great
A new production of The Magic Flute is something to look forward to, if with apprehension. How many aspects of…
Keith Warner's Wozzeck doesn't make me as angry as it used to
When Keith Warner’s production of Berg’s Wozzeck was first produced at the Royal Opera, nine years ago, it made me…
If 'Greek' is playing within 200 miles of where you live — watch it
This week chanced to give me a fascinating study in contrasts and comparisons: Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek at the Linbury Studio,…
I hope you spotted the epic 'existential struggle' in Les vêpres siciliennes — I didn't
Verdi’s Les vêpres siciliennes is his least performed mature opera, even in its more familiar version as I vespri siciliani.…
Michael Tanner: With seven scenes, Eugene Onegin really doesn't need any more pauses
This year’s live relays of New York Met performances have a markedly Slav flavour, with Shostakovich’s rare The Nose next…
A Fledermaus worth seeing for all its inadequacies
Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus (but if it’s given in English, why not The Bat? Does that somehow sound too unglamorous?)…
A sensational week for opera: sensationally good and sensationally bad
It’s been a sensational week for opera in London, with a sensationally good performance of Strauss’s Elektra at the Royal…
Why do people talk such nonsense when describing opera? American Lulu and Le Nozze di Figaro reviewed
Why would anyone want to adapt Berg’s Lulu, a masterpiece even if a problematic one? According to John Fulljames, who…
Turandot is a disgusting opera that is beyond redemption
It’s a cynical start to the Royal Opera’s season to have this 1984 production of Puccini’s last opera Turandot. Not…
Did the Proms' Billy Budd turn a mystery into a mess?
The many opera performances at the Proms this year have all been so successful, especially the Wagner series, that I…
Do I wish I’d gone to see Peter Grimes on the beach at Aldeburgh? No
With a tidal wave of Peter Grimeses about to engulf us — performances in London, Birmingham and Leeds in September…
Mark Elder and the Hallé surpassed any other account of Parsifal that Michael Tanner has heard
The Proms season of Wagner operas — pity they didn’t do them all; Die Meistersinger would have been specially welcome,…
Tippett’s Midsummer Marriage is an opera of exuberant genius — but forget about the text
Whenever Michael Tippett’s first opera, The Midsummer Marriage, is revived, there is a chorus of voices, including mine, complaining that…
Wagner at the Proms
It would be interesting to know why Tristan und Isolde was placed in the Proms programme in between Siegfried and…
