The composer of dog-food ads who also wrote one of the most original cycles of British symphonies
Next month in London, they’re celebrating a composer you’ve probably never heard of, but whose work you’re sure to have…
Funny, faithful and inventive: Scottish Opera’s Barber of Seville reviewed
A violinist friend in the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra used to talk about an orchestra’s ‘muscle memory’; a collective…
Juicy solution to the Purcell problem: Opera North’s Masque of Might reviewed
Another week, another attempt to solve the Purcell problem. There’s a problem? Well, yes, if you consider that a composer…
Ebullience and majesty: Opera North’s Falstaff reviewed
Opera North has launched a ‘Green Season’, which means (among other things) that the sets and costumes for its new…
ENO’s Peter Grimes shows a major international company operating at full artistic power
In David Alden’s production of Peter Grimes, the mob assembles before the music has even started – silhouetted at the…
Wagner rewilded: Das Rheingold, at the Royal Opera House, reviewed
In Northern Ireland Opera’s new Tosca, the curtain rises on a big concrete dish from which a pair of eyes…
A euphoric meat-and-two-veg programme: Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich/Paavo Jarvi, at the Proms, reviewed
We used to call it a ‘meat and two veg’ programme, back in my concert planning days: the reliable set…
Fast cars, minimalist design and en suite bathrooms: the real Rachmaninoff
Fast cars, minimalist design and en suite bathrooms: Richard Bratby visits the composer’s starkly modern Swiss home