Opera
Mark Elder and the Hallé surpassed any other account of Parsifal that Michael Tanner has heard
The Proms season of Wagner operas — pity they didn’t do them all; Die Meistersinger would have been specially welcome,…
Tippett’s Midsummer Marriage is an opera of exuberant genius — but forget about the text
Whenever Michael Tippett’s first opera, The Midsummer Marriage, is revived, there is a chorus of voices, including mine, complaining that…
Wagner at the Proms
It would be interesting to know why Tristan und Isolde was placed in the Proms programme in between Siegfried and…
Is this the best Ring ever?
The first complete performance of Wagner’s Ring cycle at the Proms is already, less than a week after its conclusion,…
Michael Tanner’s Glyndebourne experience is ruined by the traffic
What could be more delightful than going to Gyndebourne with someone who has never been before, arriving in time for…
A formidable cast for Covent Garden’s Capriccio
Richard Strauss’s operatic swansong Capriccio made an elegant and untaxing conclusion to the Royal Opera’s season. It was done in…
Opera review: Longborough's tiny stage takes on the Ring - and wins
There are no two ways about it: Wagner’s Ring cycle, the biggest challenge that any opera company can face, has…
Opera review: Verdi should be as controversial as Wagner
I’m not the first person to remark that Verdi is getting oddly little attention in this his bicentenary year, especially…
Opera: I am dreading the thought of Götterdämmerung if Opera North maintains the standard it has set with Siegfried
Siegfried is, everyone agrees, the hardest of the Ring dramas to bring off. The first and almost insurmountable problem is…
