Florid flummery
Lightning sometimes strikes twice. English Touring Opera hit topical gold last spring when, wholly by coincidence, they found themselves touring…
No laughing matter
As stage directions go, the The Magic Flute opens with a zinger. ‘Tamino enters from the right wearing a splendid…
Upstart Crow without the jokes
The Swan Theatre has reopened after an overhaul and praise god: they’ve replaced the seats. The Swan is a likeable…
Modern myth
Plus: a striking production of an operatic dud at ENO
Heaven sent
Haydn’s The Creation is Paradise Lost without the Lost. True, the words aren’t exactly up there: translated into German by…
Catherine the great
Since its première in 1984, Andrei Serban’s production of Puccini’s Turandot has been revived 15 times at Covent Garden, not…
They’re creepy and they’re kooky
English National Opera has arrived at the Dead City, and who, before Christmas, would have given odds that this new…
Make mine a triple
It does no harm, once in a while, to assume that the creators of an opera actually know what they’re…
Hot stuff
Hector Berlioz dismissed Handel as ‘that tub of pork and beer’ but it wasn’t always like that. Picture a younger,…
Dated and dreadful
Careful what you wish for. There can be no definitive way to stage an opera, and it’s the critic’s duty…
On Finchleystrasse
Halfway up the stairs to the Royal College of Music’s exhibition Music, Migration & Mobility is a map of NW3,…
Revival of the fittest
Opera North has begun 2023 with a couple of big revivals, and it’s always rewarding to call in on these…
Screen time
A classical concert programme is like a set menu, and for this palate the most tempting orchestral offering in the…
Mersey boy
Daniel Barenboim was supposed to perform with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra earlier this month. His recent health concerns made…
Conduct unbecoming
Richard Bratby on monstrous maestros
Blowing hot…
Temperature records for Los Angeles in the summer of 1945 are patchy, but 90 in the shade seems to have…
The greatest showman
Only boring people are bored by Ravel’s Boléro. True, the composer – the slyest of wits – left his share…
As camp as Christmas
Whoosh! A digital starburst, a sweep of orchestral sound and the stage of the Coliseum is alive with dancing, whirling…
Sexy time all the way
A hotel bellboy, the story goes, discovered George Best in a luxury suite surrounded by scantily clad lovelies and empty…
Towering achievement
The screw may twist and the rack may turn: the Tower of London, in Jo Davies’s new production of The…
The eyes have it
Do you remember Osvaldo Golijov? Two decades ago he was classical music’s Next Big Thing: a credible postmodernist with a…
But what about the plot?
You wouldn’t like Tamerlano when he’s angry. ‘My heart seethes with rage,’ he sings, in Act III of Handel’s opera…
