Opera

Can everyone please shut up about Maria Callas?

4 November 2023 9:00 am

Rupert Christiansen on the cult of Callas

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…

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…

Travels in Italy with the teenage Mozart

30 September 2023 9:00 am

Jane Glover follows the rapturous Wolfgang around Venice, Bologna, Florence and Naples on three journeys that would change the young composer’s life

Every crumb of Kurtag’s music is a feast: Endgame, at the Proms, reviewed

9 September 2023 9:00 am

The fun starts early in Beckett’s Endgame. Within minutes of opening his mouth, blind bully Hamm decides to starve his…

A euphoric meat-and-two-veg programme: Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich/Paavo Jarvi, at the Proms, reviewed

9 September 2023 9:00 am

We used to call it a ‘meat and two veg’ programme, back in my concert planning days: the reliable set…

Doesn’t get better than this: The Threepenny Opera, at Edinburgh International Festival, reviewed

2 September 2023 9:00 am

It’s the Edinburgh International Festival, and Barrie’s back in town. Once, Edinburgh was pretty much the only place that you…

A brilliantly cruel Cosi and punkish Petrushka but the Brits disappoint: Festival d’Aix-en-Provence reviewed

26 August 2023 9:00 am

Aix is an odd place. It should be charming, with its dishevelled squares, Busby Berkeley-esque fountains, pretty ochres and pinks.…

Imagine a school concert hosted by Bela Lugosi: Budapest Festival Orchestra and Ivan Fischer, at the Proms, reviewed

19 August 2023 9:00 am

‘Audience Choice’ was the promise at the Budapest Festival Orchestra’s Sunday matinee Prom, and come on – who could resist…

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…

The West has much to learn from Hungarian culture

29 July 2023 9:00 am

Hungarian culture is living through a golden age, says Igor Toronyi-Lalic, and the West has much to learn from it

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…

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…

How Ukrainians are making the lives of even anti-Putin Russian artists impossible

3 June 2023 9:00 am

Zoe Strimpel talks to the anti-Putin Russian artists who have been cancelled since the invasion of Ukraine

CSI: Seville

27 May 2023 9:00 am

Florid flummery: ETO’s Il viaggio a Reims reviewed

20 May 2023 9:00 am

Lightning sometimes strikes twice. English Touring Opera hit topical gold last spring when, wholly by coincidence, they found themselves touring…

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…

Bold, self-assured reimagining of Monteverdi: Opera North's Orpheus reviewed

29 October 2022 9:00 am

You wouldn’t like Tamerlano when he’s angry. ‘My heart seethes with rage,’ he sings, in Act III of Handel’s opera…

A miniature rite of a very English spring: a Vaughan Williams rediscovery in Liverpool

22 October 2022 9:00 am

Imagine a folk dance without music. Actually, you don’t have to: poke about on YouTube and you’ll find footage from…

Apocalypse chic: Autechre, Last Days and Southbank's Xenakis day reviewed

15 October 2022 9:00 am

It was so dark, my friend noted, you could have had sex or done a Hitler salute. No stage lights,…

Grey, grey and more grey: Aida, at the Royal Opera House, reviewed

8 October 2022 9:00 am

Grey. More grey. So very, very grey. That’s the main visual impression left by Robert Carsen’s new production of Verdi’s…

Why does opera always feel the need apologise for its plots?

1 October 2022 9:00 am

Leos Janacek disliked long operas, and the first act of The Makropulos Affair is a masterclass in how to set…