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…
Sex-change soufflé
One morning in the 20th century, Thérèse wakes up next to her husband and announces that she’s a feminist. Hubby,…
Clangers and colanders
Delius and Puccini: how’s that for an operatic odd couple? Delius, that most faded of British masters, now remembered largely…
Let them drink fizz
There are composers who are known for a single opera, and there are operas that are known for only a…
Hot stuff
One legacy of lockdown in the classical music world has been the sheer length of the 21-22 season. In a…
More melancholy, please
The Yeomen of the Guard has been called the ‘English Meistersinger’ but the more you think about that, the dafter…
Naughty but very nice
Sir David Pountney, it appears, has been to Prague. He’s booked himself a mini-break, he’s EasyJetted out, and after (one…
Born again
Richard Bratby on the resurrection of wunderkind Erich Korngold’s long-neglected masterpiece
Bathed in molten glory
When Parsifal finally returns to Montsalvat, it’s Good Friday. He’s trodden the path of suffering but now the sun is…
Sea fever
You’ve got to hand it to Dame Ethel Smyth. Working in an era when to be a British composer implied…
Lilacs out of the dead land
April is the cruellest month, but May is shaping up quite pleasantly and the daylight streamed in through the east…
G-force
Imagine growing up with a whole orchestra as your plaything. Richard Strauss’s father was the principal horn of the Munich…
The Muppet show
There are many things to enjoy in the Royal Opera’s revival of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, but perhaps the most surprising…
Literally Hitler
To be a Wagnerite is to enter the theatre in a state of paranoia. Mainstream culture has decided that Wagner…
Colour in the gloom
Music and politics don’t mix, runs the platitude. Looks a bit tattered now, doesn’t it? For Soviet musicians, of course,…
After the love has gone
Utopia, Limited (1893) is a rare bird, and one that every Gilbert and Sullivan completist simply has to bag. The…
Bird brained
Blame it on Serge Diaghilev. Rimsky-Korsakov died in 1908 and never saw the première of his last opera, The Golden…
Great Britten
No question, the Royal Opera is on a roll. Just look at the cast list alone for Deborah Warner’s new…
Away with the fairies
Scottish Opera’s new production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream seems to open in midwinter. Snow falls, fairies hurl snowballs…
