Tosca
Vivid, noble and bouyant: AAM’s Messiah reviewed
More than a thousand musicians took part when Handel’s Messiah was performed in Westminster Abbey in May 1791. It wasn’t…
Old-school excess, star power and spectacle: Royal Opera's Tosca reviewed
London felt like its old self on Friday night. Possibly it was just me; when you visit the capital once…
Opera North’s Tosca will leave you quivering
At the end of Act Two of Tosca there are some 30 bars of orchestral music — accompaniment to a…
Royal Opera’s Tosca is a sloppy affair
One of the Royal Opera’s greatest virtues is the care it takes with its revivals, even those that are virtually…
Puccini’s villain as swashbuckling hero
You don’t need to know the opera Tosca to understand and enjoy this book about Puccini’s most notorious villain, Vitellio…
In defence of Puccini
During my opera-going lifetime the most sensational change in the repertoire has, of course, been the immense expansion of the…
Two Mimi-Rodolfos at Opera North who go from nought to frisky very believably
Purists might have winced at Opera North’s advertisement for its latest revival of La Bohème. ‘If you see one musical…
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…
