Opera
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…
Weaving the colours of music
One loom, six metres in length, currently dominates the great, light-filled weaving hall of Edinburgh’s renowned tapestry workshop, Dovecot Studios.…
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…
Is this the best Ring ever?
The first complete performance of Wagner’s Ring cycle at the Proms is already, less than a week after its conclusion,…
Michael Tanner’s Glyndebourne experience is ruined by the traffic
What could be more delightful than going to Gyndebourne with someone who has never been before, arriving in time for…
A formidable cast for Covent Garden’s Capriccio
Richard Strauss’s operatic swansong Capriccio made an elegant and untaxing conclusion to the Royal Opera’s season. It was done in…
Opera review: Longborough's tiny stage takes on the Ring - and wins
There are no two ways about it: Wagner’s Ring cycle, the biggest challenge that any opera company can face, has…
Opera review: Verdi should be as controversial as Wagner
I’m not the first person to remark that Verdi is getting oddly little attention in this his bicentenary year, especially…
Opera: I am dreading the thought of Götterdämmerung if Opera North maintains the standard it has set with Siegfried
Siegfried is, everyone agrees, the hardest of the Ring dramas to bring off. The first and almost insurmountable problem is…
