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…
Small but perfectly formed: the Royal College of Music Museum reopening reviewed
Haydn is looking well — in fact, he’s positively glowing. The dignified pose; the modest, intelligent smile: it’s only when…
We'll be talking about Royal Opera's Jenufa two decades from now
Leos Janacek cared about words. He’d hang about central Brno, notebook in hand, eavesdropping on conversations and trying to capture…
Hits you where it hurts: Welsh National Opera's Madam Butterfly reviewed
‘It’s generally agreed that in contemporary practice, this opera proposes significant ethical and cultural problems,’ says the director Lindy Hume…
See it while it’s still hot: Royal Opera's Rigoletto reviewed
In Oliver Mears’s new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto, the curtain rises on a work of art. The stage is in…
A terrific night of opera: Zanetto/Orfeo ed Euridice, Arcola Theatre, reviewed
For a one-hit composer, we hear rather a lot of Pietro Mascagni. His reputation rests on his 1890 debut Cavalleria…
Opera della Luna is a little miracle: Curtain Raisers at Wilton’s Music Hall reviewed
Arthur Sullivan knew better than to mess with a winning formula. ‘Cox and Box, based on J. Maddison Morton’s farce…
Exuberance and class: Ariadne auf Naxos at Edinburgh International Festival reviewed
For some reason, I’d got it into my head that the main work in the Gringolts Quartet’s midday recital at…
The central performances are tremendous: Glyndebourne's Luisa Miller, reviewed
Opera buffs enjoy their jargon. We all do it, scattering words like ‘spinto’ and ‘Fach’ like an enthusiastic pizza waiter…
