Gluck
A terrific night of opera: Zanetto/Orfeo ed Euridice, Arcola Theatre, reviewed
For a one-hit composer, we hear rather a lot of Pietro Mascagni. His reputation rests on his 1890 debut Cavalleria…
More misogynistic than the original: ENO’s Orpheus in the Underworld reviewed
It’s Act Three of Emma Rice’s new production of Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, and Eurydice (Mary Bevan) is trapped…
The morality of conducting
Now he is the greatest figure for me, in the world. [Toscanini is] the last proud, noble, unbending representative (with…
The singing made me seasick: ETO’s Don Giovanni reviewed
One of these days I will probably see a production of Don Giovanni set in a research station in the…
The best ballerinas in Britain at the moment are hairy and male
There was blood on the walls and floor at the birth of Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet in 1965. The…
As good a treatment of a Bellini opera as we are likely to see: WNO's I puritani reviewed
Bellini belongs to that category of not-quite-great operatic composers whose works are also very difficult to perform adequately, and don’t…
Buxton Festival sticks its neck out with two rarities by Dvorak and Gluck
Dvorak’s The Jacobin and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, the two operas that opened this year’s Buxton Festival, are both relative…
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…
