Britten

Spot-on in almost every way: Scottish Opera's A Midsummer Night’s Dream reviewed

19 March 2022 9:00 am

Scottish Opera’s new production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream seems to open in midwinter. Snow falls, fairies hurl snowballs…

Why we love requiems

2 May 2020 9:00 am

Alexandra Coghlan on the enduring appeal of requiems

Handsome and revivable but I wasn’t moved: Royal Opera’s Death in Venice reviewed

30 November 2019 9:00 am

Premièred within two years of each other, Luchino Visconti’s film and Benjamin Britten’s opera Death in Venice both take Thomas…

Individual performers make their mark: Jacques Imbrailo as Billy Budd and Alasdair Elliott as Squeak

An abdication of interpretative responsibility: Royal Opera’s Billy Budd reviewed

4 May 2019 9:00 am

The climactic central scene of Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd ends unexpectedly. The naval court has reached a verdict of death,…

RLPO and the NDR Radiophilharmonie performing Britten's War Requiem in Liverpool Cathedral. Photo: Liverpool Philharmonic / Mark McNulty

Britten’s War Requiem almost sounded like a masterpiece – but it’s isn’t, is it?

17 November 2018 9:00 am

‘What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?’ We’ve heard a lot, lately, of the knell that tolls through the…

Opera North’s Tosca will leave you quivering

29 September 2018 9:00 am

At the end of Act Two of Tosca there are some 30 bars of orchestral music — accompaniment to a…

More than ever, this was Ulysses’ show: Royal Opera’s Return of Ulysses reviewed

20 January 2018 9:00 am

Spoiler alert: the final image of John Fulljames’s production of Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses at the Roundhouse is haunting.…

When is a rape not a rape? Fiona Shaw's Rape of Lucretia at Glyndebourne reviewed

11 July 2015 9:00 am

When is a rape not a rape? It’s an unsettling question — far more so than anything offered up by…

‘I find my comfort zone in the wilderness’: Barbara Hannigan

Classical music doesn't need to change. It just needs more performers like Barbara Hannigan

25 April 2015 9:00 am

What classical music really needs is more performers like Barbara Hannigan. Philip Clark meets theself-conducting soprano

Glyndebourne’s Turn of the Screw: horrors of the most innocent and creepy kind

25 October 2014 9:00 am

We all know that ‘They fuck you up your mum and dad’, but nowhere is this more reliably (and violently)…

Ferdinand Mount's diary: Supermac was guilty!

25 January 2014 9:00 am

You have to hand it to Supermac. Fifty years after the event, he is still running rings round them. The…

Opera review: The Barbican's Albert Herring was a perfect evening

30 November 2013 9:00 am

Of this year’s three musical birthday boys, Wagner has fared, in England, surprisingly well, Verdi inexplicably badly, and Britten, as…

Do I wish I’d gone to see Peter Grimes on the beach at Aldeburgh? No

7 September 2013 9:00 am

With a tidal wave of Peter Grimeses about to engulf us — performances in London, Birmingham and Leeds in September…

Who cares if Wagner’s 200? The plague of the anniversary

24 August 2013 9:00 am

Centenaries now seem to be the only reason that publishers and concert planners do anything at all