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…
Neither Tristan nor Isolde quite convinced: Glyndebourne's Tristan und Isolde reviewed
Glyndebourne is nothing if not honest. ‘In response to the ongoing Covid-19 restrictions our 2021 performances of Tristan und Isolde…
Ecstasy from Birmingham Opera Company: Wagner's RhineGold reviewed
At the end of Birmingham Opera Company’s RhineGold, as the gods stood ready to enter Valhalla, Donner swung a baseball…
Springtime for Putin: Grange Park's The Life and Death of Alexander Litvinenko reviewed
Alexander Litvinenko lies in a London hospital, dying of polonium poisoning. That photograph from 2006 haunts the memory: the medical…
A short history of millionaire composers
Art is supposed to emerge from poverty but extreme wealth does not preclude talent, as the history of composers proves. By Richard Bratby
Zips along with enormous vim: Malcolm Arnold's The Dancing Master reviewed
Malcolm Arnold composed his opera The Dancing Master in 1952 for BBC television. It never appeared, the problem being the…
Comedy genius: Garsington Opera's Le Comte Ory reviewed
Melons. An absolutely cracking pair of melons, right there on a platter: the centrepiece of the banquet that the chaste,…
Wow, this is good: Grange Park Opera's Ivan the Terrible reviewed
There are worse inconveniences than having to wear a face mask to the opera. But there’s one consequence that hadn’t…
A new concerto draws cheers in Liverpool: RLPO/Hindoyan reviewed
There was no printed programme for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s first concert under its music director designate Domingo Hindoyan.…
The promoter the critics love to hate: an interview with Raymond Gubbay
Richard Bratby talks to one of Britain’s most successful impresarios about his promoter’s nose, Arts Council spinelessness and ENO madness
Lush, elegant and vivid: Der Rosenkavalier at Garsington reviewed
At the turning point of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Der Rosenkavalier, all the clocks stop. Octavian has arrived…
Hit every auditory G-spot simultaneously: CBSO/Hough/Gardner concert reviewed
Rejoice: live music is back. Or at least, live music with a live audience, which, as Sir Simon Rattle admitted,…
For fans of neglected, niche and uncool music, lockdown has been a blessing
When this whole mess is over, there’ll be a shortish MA thesis — or at least a blog post —…
Are Mozart's forgotten contemporaries worth reviving?
There are worse fates than posthumous obscurity. When Mozart visited Munich in October 1777, he was initially reluctant to visit…
