Yet another Tosca set in a militaristic dystopia?
Annilese Miskimmon, the artistic director of English National Opera, has asked critics not to reveal the ending of her new…
What cinema gets wrong about conductors
André Previn began his career at MGM. And after he’d quit the studio to become conductor of the London Symphony…
Opera’s obsession with the Eastern bloc
There was a fad a while back for photo books about Eastern bloc architecture. Derelict megastructures, brutalist monuments; you couldn’t…
The Hallé is on a roll
Say what you like about Manchester – and who doesn’t, right now? – but when it comes to imaginative programming,…
Royal Opera’s maddeningly erratic Parsifal
If the Royal Opera’s new Parsifal had ended after Act One, you’d be reading right now that it was one…
Do we really need a Dudamel Schumann cycle?
Grade: B These are strange days in the recording industry. Heaven alone knows why Platoon – an Apple sub-conglomerate with…
Meet the man behind Royal Opera’s new Parsifal
Evgeny Titov has landed at the Royal Opera, and he has good news for Britain’s beleaguered opera scene. ‘It’s the…
When will I see a Carmen set in 19th-century Seville?
No critic sets out to be a reactionary, even though it’s much easier that way. There’s no real satisfaction in…
Rattle makes Schumann shine and sing
Phrenology, eh? It’s cobblers, plainly, but Robert Schumann didn’t know that and his biographer Martin Geck tells how in 1846,…
Words are the most important part of any opera
The long days wane, summer fades and sure enough, the big international guest orchestras begin to land at the BBC…
Finally: a museum that refrains from moralising
Hull is a city of many quirks, but I didn’t expect a mermaid. Seriously: an actual mermaid, mounted in a…
The violinist who told the Vienna Phil where to stick it
Grade: A The Viennese violinist Arnold Rosé (1863-1946) held a musical civilisation together. Brother-in-law of Mahler, friend to Brahms and…
A true visual spectacle: Edinburgh’s The Galloping Cure reviewed
Those lights! Thinking back on The Galloping Cure, Missy Mazzoli’s new opera for the Edinburgh International Festival, that’s what lingers:…
This giant of romanticism deserves so much more
Pity Carl Maria von Weber. On the morning of 5 June 1826 a servant knocked on the door of his…
A much-deserved revival of a formidable British composer
Grade: B+ ‘Cheltenham Symphonies’, they used to call them – a catch-all term for the kind of large-scale, traditionally inclined…
A triumphant adaptation of Game of Thrones
Wasn’t it Philomena Cunk who first observed that Shakespeare’s greatest work is Game of Thrones? She had a point. When…
Don’t miss this dark Hansel and Gretel
The Three Choirs Festival always feels so nourishing, so eternally English, that you sometimes forget how much history has been…
The concert of the year
Ah, so that’s where the kangaroo comes in! Garsington Opera produces a souvenir mug each summer decorated with cartoons of…
A Sound of Music with brains as well as heart
If you’re interested in how words work with music, the collected lyrics of Stephen Sondheim are an investment you’ll never…
The finest music ever composed by a Breton naval officer
Grade: B+ There’s a special art in making something difficult appear effortless, and the string trio is a supreme test.…
Lisette Oropesa triumphs in I puritani
Vincenzo Bellini realised early on that as titles go, Le teste rotonde ed i cavalieri (The Roundheads and the Cavaliers)…
A spectacular new staging of L’Orfeo
Say what you like about Monteverdi, but he knew how to get his audience on side. ‘I greet you, heroes,…
An entertaining Rheingold from Grange Park Opera
Grange Park Opera has acquired a new chandelier for its theatre at West Horsley; a jumble of foliage and fairy…
