Wagner
The morality of conducting
Now he is the greatest figure for me, in the world. [Toscanini is] the last proud, noble, unbending representative (with…
New kid on the block
The new Grange Park Opera at Horsley is amazing, as everyone who visits it must agree. In less than a…
The conducting is as potent as Furtwängler’s: Opera North’s Ring reviewed
When I interviewed Richard Farnes in Leeds six years ago about Opera North’s project of performing the complete Ring, he…
Verdi’s works are more entertainment than art
Verdi has a peculiar if not unique place in the pantheon of great composers. If you love classical music at…
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…
Predictably meh: Scottish Ballet’s new Swan Lake reviewed
Every ballet company wants a box-office earner. But why Scottish Ballet’s leader Christopher Hampson kept on at David Dawson until…
If you want to know how music really works listen to Classic FM not Radio 3
He’s been billed as the new Pied Piper but it’s going to take a while for Tom Service to quite…
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…
Long live ENO!
The three most moving, transporting death scenes in 19th-century opera all involve the respective heroines mounting a funeral pyre —…
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…
Spare us this unanimous chorus of praise for Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez, who died last week at the age of 90, would have been the last person, one hopes, to…
How the Germans made Glyndebourne
This is hardly the time of year for picnics on the lawn, but I have nevertheless had a week dominated…
Late Brahms is wonderfully crafted - which is why it's so dull
Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet begins, writes his biographer Jan Swafford, with ‘a gentle, dying-away roulade that raises a veil of autumnal…
Glyndebourne caters to the lower-middle classes not past-it toffs
What is Glyndebourne? A middle-aged Bullingdon. That’s a common view: a luxury bun fight for past-it toffs who glug champagne,…
The finest Tristan since Siegfried Jerusalem
Which of Wagner’s mature dramas is the most challenging, for performers and spectators? The one you’re seeing at the moment,…
Lunch with a claret fit for gods, heroes and David Cameron
I cannot remember a jollier lunch. There are two brothers, Sebastian and Nicholas Payne, both practical epicureans. They have made…
Miriam Gross’s diary: Why use Freud and Kurt Weill to promote Wagner?
Last week I went to the exhilarating English National Opera production of Wagner’s The Mastersingers — five hours of wonderful…
Mastersingers of Nuremberg, ENO, review: ‘a triumph’
ENO’s new production of Wagner’s The Mastersingers of Nuremberg is a triumph about which only the most niggling of reservations…
An artistic crime is committed at the Royal Festival Hall
In one of the more peculiar concerts that I have been to at the Royal Festival Hall, Vladimir Jurowski conducted…
Royal Opera’s Tristan und Isolde: an absurd production - but still a magnificent night
Any adequate performance of Tristan und Isolde, and the first night of the Royal Opera’s production was at least that,…
In Norwich, a director is caught trying to murder Wagner’s Tannhäuser
Seventeen years ago the Norwegian National Opera staged two cycles of the Ring in Norwich’s Theatre Royal, performances that have…
In the mood for Parsifal, my Passiontide fare
This week, I have been mostly listening to Parsifal. Not the St Matthew Passion, which is my usual Passiontide fare.…
Parsifal has anxiety, rage, near-madness — unfortunately the Royal Opera's version doesn't
Debussy’s description of the music of Parsifal as being ‘lit up from behind’ is famous; less so is Wagner’s own…
Alexander Chancellor: A slice of Italy in Milton Keynes
Back home from a week in Italy, I almost feel that I haven’t left. For I go almost at once…
Who cares if Wagner’s 200? The plague of the anniversary
Centenaries now seem to be the only reason that publishers and concert planners do anything at all
