Opera

Juicy solution to the Purcell problem: Opera North’s Masque of Might reviewed

21 October 2023 9:00 am

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

7 October 2023 9:00 am

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

30 September 2023 9:00 am

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

23 September 2023 9:00 am

In Northern Ireland Opera’s new Tosca, the curtain rises on a big concrete dish from which a pair of eyes…

An absolute romp framed by dutiful tut-tutting: Semele at Glyndebourne reviewed

5 August 2023 9:00 am

If directors will insist on staging Handel oratorios as if they’re operas, it makes sense to pick Semele, which is…

The future of opera – I hope: WNO’s Candide reviewed

29 July 2023 9:00 am

Bernstein’s Candide is the operetta that ought to work, but never quite does. Voltaire’s featherlight cakewalk through human misery, set…

Was Vera Brittain really this insufferable? Buxton Festival’s The Land of Might-Have-Been reviewed

15 July 2023 9:00 am

‘Ring out your bells for me, ivory keys! Weave out your spell for me, orchestra please!’ It’s lush stuff, the…

Featherweight fun: La Cenerentola, at Nevill Holt Opera, reviewed

8 July 2023 9:00 am

‘Goodness Triumphant’ is the subtitle of Rossini’s La Cenerentola, and you’d better believe he delivers. It’s the sweetest thing imaginable;…

Festival finest

1 July 2023 9:00 am

Taut as a drumskin: Dialogues des Carmélites, at Glyndebourne, reviewed

24 June 2023 9:00 am

The three Just Stop Oil protestors were sitting in the stalls, somewhere near the middle of the front row. Someone…

To die for: Grange Park Opera’s Tristan & Isolde reviewed

17 June 2023 9:00 am

There are a lot of corpses on stage at the end of Charles Edwards’s production of Tristan & Isolde for…

The final scenes are a knockout: Glyndebourne’s Don Giovanni reviewed

10 June 2023 9:00 am

Are you supposed to laugh at the end of Don Giovanni? Audiences often do, and they did at the end…

CSI: Seville

27 May 2023 9:00 am

WNO sinks an unsinkable opera: The Magic Flute, at Birmingham Hippodrome, reviewed

13 May 2023 9:00 am

As stage directions go, the The Magic Flute opens with a zinger. ‘Tamino enters from the right wearing a splendid…

Dramatically powerful and sonically beguiling: Innocence, at the Royal Opera House, reviewed

29 April 2023 9:00 am

Plus: a striking production of an operatic dud at ENO

The opera’s a masterpiece but the production doesn’t quite come off: ENO’s The Dead City reviewed

1 April 2023 9:00 am

English National Opera has arrived at the Dead City, and who, before Christmas, would have given odds that this new…

Electrifying: London Handel Festival’s In the Realms of Sorrow, at Stone Nest, reviewed

11 March 2023 9:00 am

Hector Berlioz dismissed Handel as ‘that tub of pork and beer’ but it wasn’t always like that. Picture a younger,…

Talking trash

25 February 2023 9:00 am