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…
Miniature rite of spring
Imagine a folk dance without music. Actually, you don’t have to: poke about on YouTube and you’ll find footage from…
Fifty shades of grey
Grey. More grey. So very, very grey. That’s the main visual impression left by Robert Carsen’s new production of Verdi’s…
Losing the plot
Leos Janacek disliked long operas, and the first act of The Makropulos Affair is a masterclass in how to set…
More depravity, please
The first night of the new season at Covent Garden was cancelled when the solemn news came through. The second…
A fine romance
One swallow might not make a summer, but it certainly helps rounds the season off. ‘Perhaps, like the swallow, you…
Hail, César!
In the Rodgers and Hart musical On Your Toes, a Broadway hoofer is forced to work at a community college,…
Joyous freefall
The first part of the adventure was getting there. Out of the subway, past the tower blocks and under the…
