Laurence Cummings
ENO’s Jack the Ripper needs to decide if it wants to be a gore-fest or social history
Alexandra Coghlan 6 April 2019 9:00 am
Is it possible to write a feminist opera about Jack the Ripper? Composer Iain Bell thinks it is, and his…
A Handel opera that isn't by Handel, and a Mozart opera composed in 1990, reviewed
Alexandra Coghlan 23 April 2016 9:00 am
Disguises and mistaken identities are a staple of opera, but usually as part of the onstage, not the offstage, action.…
Why we should revel in the empty virtuosity of Handel's pasticcios
Alexandra Coghlan 28 March 2015 9:00 am
Before the jukebox musical, back when Mamma Mia!, Jersey Boys and Viva Forever! were still dollar-shaped glints in an as-yet-unborn…
Opera North’s Coronation of Poppea: a premium-rate sex-line of an opera
Anna Picard 18 October 2014 9:00 am
Virtue, hide thyself! The Coronation of Poppea opens with a warning and closes with a love duet for a concubine…