Richard Bratby

Spellbinding: Herbert Blomstedt’s Mahler 9 reviewed

7 December 2024 9:00 am

Ivor Cutler called silence the music of the cognoscenti. But there’s silence and there’s silence, and a regular concertgoer hears…

A keeper: ENO’s new The Elixir of Love reviewed

30 November 2024 9:00 am

There was some light booing on the first night of English National Opera’s The Elixir of Love, but it was…

Fails to ignite: Royal Opera’s Tales of Hoffmann reviewed

16 November 2024 9:00 am

I couldn’t love anyone who didn’t love Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann. Everything – everything – is stacked against this…

One beauty – one turkey: Wexford Festival Opera reviewed

9 November 2024 9:00 am

‘Theatre within Theatre’ was the theme of the 2024 Wexford Festival and with Sir Charles Villiers Stanford’s The Critic, that’s…

A lively and imaginative interpretation of an indestructible Britten opera

2 November 2024 9:00 am

Scottish Opera’s new production of Albert Herring updates the action to 1990, and hey – remember 1990? No, not particularly,…

You’re unlikely to see a better case made for this Bernstein double bill

19 October 2024 9:00 am

It’s rare nowadays to see a new opera production that’s set in the period that the composer and librettist intended,…

The BBC Singers Centenary Concert was toe-curling

12 October 2024 9:00 am

When does a new opera enter the repertoire? Judith Weir’s Blond Eckbert has only had a couple of UK productions…

Heartfelt and thought-provoking: Eugene Onegin, at the Royal Opera, reviewed

5 October 2024 9:00 am

The curtain is already up at the start of Ted Huffman’s new production of Eugene Onegin. The auditorium is lit…

Committed performances – but who was the granny? Northern Ireland Opera’s Eugene Onegin reviewed

28 September 2024 9:00 am

It’s a critic’s job to pick holes in the dafter aspects of opera productions, but in truth audiences are usually…

The problem with Klaus Makela

14 September 2024 9:00 am

Klaus Makela is kind of a big deal. He’s a pupil of the Finnish conducting guru Jorma Panula – the…

A lively showcase for a great central European orchestra at the Proms

7 September 2024 9:00 am

As the Proms season enters the home straight, it’s moved up a gear, with a string of high profile European…

Save our steam engines!

31 August 2024 9:00 am

Last week, if you’d known what to listen for, you might have heard a chorus of miniature whistles in gardens…

Aggressively jaded: Edinburgh’s Marriage of Figaro reviewed

31 August 2024 9:00 am

‘Boo!’ came a voice from the stalls. ‘Boo. Outrage!’ It was hard not to feel a pang of admiration. British…

Britain’s youngest summer opera festival is seriously impressive

24 August 2024 9:00 am

Waterperry is one of the UK’s youngest summer opera festivals: it started up in 2018, at the northern limit of…

In defence of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Grand Duke

17 August 2024 9:00 am

Artistic partnerships are elusive things. The best – where two creative personalities somehow inspire or goad each other to do…

Forget the Proms and Edinburgh – the Three Choirs Festival is where it’s at

3 August 2024 9:00 am

The Proms have started but there is a world elsewhere, and in Worcester Cathedral the 296th Three Choirs Festival set…

A major operatic rediscovery: Birmingham Opera Company’s New Year reviewed

20 July 2024 9:00 am

This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before his time. One of the most thrilling aspects of the Tippett…

Sparky and often hilarious: Garsington’s Un giorno di regno reviewed

13 July 2024 9:00 am

Hang out with both trainspotters and opera buffs and you’ll soon notice that opera buffs are by far the more…

An ensemble achievement that dances and sparkles: Glyndebourne’s Giulio Cesare reviewed

6 July 2024 9:00 am

A classic opera production ages like wine. When David McVicar’s staging of Handel’s Giulio Cesare first opened at Glyndebourne in…

‘Zings off the stage’: My Fair Lady, at Leeds Playhouse, reviewed

29 June 2024 9:00 am

If you want to kill a musical, make it into a movie. Cats, Phantom of the Opera, South Pacific… cinema…

A sugar rush for the eyes: Glyndebourne’s The Merry Widow reviewed

22 June 2024 9:00 am

In 1905, shortly before the world première of The Merry Widow, the Viennese theatre manager Wilhelm Karczag got cold feet…

‘I want every production I do to be the funniest’: an interview with Cal McCrystal

15 June 2024 9:00 am

There are certain things that you don’t expect at the opera. Laughter, for example. Proper laughter, that is; not the…

Shiny, raunchy, heartless spectacular: Platée, at Garsington, reviewed

8 June 2024 9:00 am

Fast times on Mount Olympus. Jupiter has been shagging around again and now his wife Juno has bailed on their…

When Fauré played The Spectator

1 June 2024 9:00 am

Gabriel Fauré composed his song cycle La bonne chanson in 1894 for piano and voice. But he added string parts…