Opera
Scottish Opera could have a hit on its hands with this new Mikado
You have to be quite silly to take Gilbert and Sullivan seriously. But even sillier not to. G&S is still…
When opera singers can’t sing
Were Florence Foster Jenkins and her fellow culprits touchingly heroic, cynically fraudulent or just plain bonkers? Rupert Christiansen reports
Royal Opera’s Tannhäuser is one of the ugliest stagings I have set eyes on
Cursed, or perhaps blessed, with almost no visual memory at all, I had almost completely forgotten what the Royal Opera’s…
Not a trip to the cinema you’ll bitterly resent – or hugely enjoy: Florence Foster Jenkins reviewed
Before we turn our attention to Florence Foster Jenkins — but if you can’t wait, it’s so-so — I feel…
Shattering - despite the lack of staging: Czech Phil’s Jenufa reviewed
Janacek’s Jenufa, his first great opera, had a one-night stand at the Royal Festival Hall last Monday, courtesy of the…
A Handel opera that isn't by Handel, and a Mozart opera composed in 1990, reviewed
Disguises and mistaken identities are a staple of opera, but usually as part of the onstage, not the offstage, action.…
Tame and drowning in detail: Royal Opera’s Lucia di Lammermoor reviewed
Lucia di Lammermoor is one of the two or three Donizetti operas that have never fallen out of the repertoire,…
Is there a funnier opera than Gerald Barry’s Importance of Being Earnest?
Comic opera is no laughing matter. Seriously, when was the last time you laughed out loud in the opera house?…
The rotten fruits of Peter Maxwell Davies’s modernism
The intransigence of Maxwell Davies, Boulez and Stockhausen is coming home to roost. Here were three composers, famous if not…
First Dates is perfectly formed TV
Now the kids are back for the school holidays, I have a licence to watch complete trash again. No more…
An unqualified triumph: Boris Godunov at the Royal Opera reviewed
The Royal Opera has bitten the bullet so far as Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov goes, and opted to stage the original…
In a world full of zombie new operas, thank god for Philip Glass’s Akhnaten
A mixed year so far for new opera. A few really dismal things have appeared from people who should know…
WNO reminds us Figaro's a comedy – which is no bad thing
Near the end of Elena Langer’s new opera Figaro Gets a Divorce, as the Almaviva household — now emigrés in…
Vocally and theatrically strong: Il trittico at the Royal Opera reviewed
The setting for Il tabarro, the first drama in Puccini’s 1918 triptych of one-act operas, is not the Paris of…
ENO must go
Last week Darren Henley, chief executive of Arts Council England, revealed that opera receives just under a fifth of the…
Long live ENO!
The three most moving, transporting death scenes in 19th-century opera all involve the respective heroines mounting a funeral pyre —…
Cruel and absurd: WNO’s Barber of Seville reviewed
‘Forget Downton Abbey!’ exhorts David Pountney in the programme for Figaro Forever, Welsh National Opera’s season of Beaumarchais operas, The…
Life-enhancing achievement: ENO's Magic Flute reviewed
Centre stage, there’s an industrial-looking black platform, secured by cables. The Three Ladies snap the unconscious Tamino on a mobile…
Unlikely to win converts: Royal Opera's L'Étoile reviewed
It’s widely agreed that the most difficult form of opera to bring off is operetta, whether of the Austro-German or…
Miserable libretto, music to match: Andrea Chénier reviewed
Opera North continues to be the most reliable, inspiring, resourceful and enterprising opera company in the United Kingdom, and all…
Powerful and upsetting: Pelléas et Mélisande at the Barbican reviewed
There are some operas, as there are some people, that it is impossible to establish a settled relationship with, and…
Conductor and orchestra played as if in love: Royal Opera’s Eugene Onegin reviewed
It’s scene five of Kasper Holten’s production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Michael Fabiano’s Lensky is alone with a snow-covered…
Royal Opera’s Cavalleria rusticana isn’t nearly vulgar enough
How often do you get a chance to see two operas by Leoncavallo in the same city in the same…
A devastating Jenufa - if you could hear it
About 15 minutes into act one of Jenufa, the student in the next seat leaned over to her companions and…
Has there ever been a better time to be a lover of Baroque opera?
Time was when early music was a 6 p.m. concert, Baroque began with Bach and ended with Corelli’s Christmas Concerto,…
