Claude Vivier ought to be a modern classic. Why isn't he?
April is the cruellest month, but May is shaping up quite pleasantly and the daylight streamed in through the east…
Even Nelsons’s miscalculations are fascinating: Leipzig Gewandhaus/Andris Nelsons, at the Barbican, reviewed
Imagine growing up with a whole orchestra as your plaything. Richard Strauss’s father was the principal horn of the Munich…
Too affectionate, not enough cruelty: Don Pasquale, at the Royal Opera House, reviewed
There are many things to enjoy in the Royal Opera’s revival of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, but perhaps the most surprising…
A fine cast, superbly conducted – just don't overthink the production: Royal Opera's Lohengrin reviewed
To be a Wagnerite is to enter the theatre in a state of paranoia. Mainstream culture has decided that Wagner…
Igor Levit deserved his standing ovation; Shostakovich, even more so
Music and politics don’t mix, runs the platitude. Looks a bit tattered now, doesn’t it? For Soviet musicians, of course,…
A spirited attempt to fix a show that’s never really flown: Utopia, Limited reviewed
Utopia, Limited (1893) is a rare bird, and one that every Gilbert and Sullivan completist simply has to bag. The…
Pitch-black satire drenched in an atmosphere of compelling unease: ETO's Golden Cockerel reviewed
Blame it on Serge Diaghilev. Rimsky-Korsakov died in 1908 and never saw the première of his last opera, The Golden…
Comes so close to greatness but succumbs to prejudice: Royal Opera's Peter Grimes reviewed
No question, the Royal Opera is on a roll. Just look at the cast list alone for Deborah Warner’s new…
Spot-on in almost every way: Scottish Opera's A Midsummer Night’s Dream reviewed
Scottish Opera’s new production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream seems to open in midwinter. Snow falls, fairies hurl snowballs…
Astonishing, if unnecessary, grandstanding: Barbara Hannigan's La voix humaine reviewed
I think it was when she leaned forward and balanced on one leg that Barbara Hannigan jumped the shark. It…
Deserves to become an ENO staple: The Cunning Little Vixen reviewed
Spoiler alert. The last words in Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen come from a child playing a frog. The story…
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…
Turns Handel into a Netflix thriller: Royal Opera's Theodora reviewed
The Royal Opera has come over all baroque. In the Linbury Theatre, they’re hosting Irish National Opera’s production of Vivaldi’s…
Ralph Vaughan Williams: modernist master
He is caricatured as a populist and purveyor of ‘folky-wolky’ melodies, says Richard Bratby, but Vaughan Williams was a modernist master of uncompromising originality
Clear, complex and gripping: Opera North's Rigoletto reviewed
Say what you like about that Duke of Mantua, but he’s basically an OK sort of bloke. A bit of…
Not pleasant, and not in tune, but unarguably compelling: Royal Opera's Nabucco reviewed
Nabucco, said Giuseppe Verdi, ‘was born under a lucky star’. It was both his last throw of the dice and…
A booster shot of sunlight: Unsuk Chin's new violin concerto reviewed
Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra began the year with a world première. Unsuk Chin’s Second Violin Concerto…
Business as usual
It’s 2022 and classical music is, again, dead. It’d be surprising if it wasn’t. In 2014 the New Yorker published…
The genius of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker score
The enduring appeal of The Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky’s ravishing score is nothing less than the sound of Christmas
Reprehensible – but fun: Orpheus Chamber Orchestra's Complete DG Recordings reviewed
Grade: B It must have been an interesting day in the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra’s press office when Blair Tindall’s memoir…
In defence of the earworm
That strain again… it’s the morning after the concert and one tune is still there, playing in the head upon…
40 per cent sublime, 60 per cent ridiculous: ENO's The Valkyrie reviewed
It’s the final scene of The Valkyrie and Wotan is wearing cords. They’re a sensible choice for a hard-working deity:…
Hockney’s Rake’s Progress remains one of the supreme achievements
With Glyndebourne’s The Rake’s Progress, the show starts with David Hockney’s front cloth. The colour, the ingenuity, the visual bravura:…
This is how G&S should be staged: ENO's HMS Pinafore reviewed
Until 1881, HMS Pinafore was the second-longest-running show in West End history. Within a year of its première it had…
Very much NSFW: Jean-Efflam Bavouzet/Quatuor Danel at Wigmore Hall reviewed
‘Drammatico’, wrote César Franck over the opening of his Piano Quintet, and you’d better believe he meant it. The score…
