Handel
When will I see a Carmen set in 19th-century Seville?
No critic sets out to be a reactionary, even though it’s much easier that way. There’s no real satisfaction in…
An outstanding Turn of the Screw
Never let it be said that The Spectator fails to follow up an arts story. Long-term readers will recall that…
Football vs opera, and the terror of being considered highbrow
Opera was hugely popular in Victorian Britain, but subsidies have doomed it to charges of ‘foreign elitism’ – as opposed to a ‘national passion, like football’
Evgeny Kissin’s stand-in brings the house down
It was such an enticing programme, too. The Philharmonia had booked Evgeny Kissin, the last great piano prodigy of the…
Handel was derided in his own time – particularly by us, for which belated apologies
Here’s a patriotic thought for you: baroque opera, as we now know it, was made in Britain. Sure, there are…
I’ve rarely seen a happier audience: Grange Festival’s Die Fledermaus reviewed
‘So suburban!’ That’s Prince Orlofsky’s catchphrase in the Grange Festival’s new production of Die Fledermaus, and he gets a lot…
The liberating force of musical modernism
It’s Arvo Part’s 90th birthday year, which is good news if you like your minimalism glum, low and very, very…
Vivid, noble and bouyant: AAM’s Messiah reviewed
More than a thousand musicians took part when Handel’s Messiah was performed in Westminster Abbey in May 1791. It wasn’t…
Ageing well
A classic opera production ages like wine. When David McVicar’s staging of Handel’s Giulio Cesare first opened at Glyndebourne in…
You could have built a tent city from all the red chinos: Aci by the River reviewed
The Thames cruise for which Handel composed his Water Music in 1717 famously went on until around 4 a.m. The…
How the Georgians invented nightlife
Dan Hitchens on the Georgian obsession with lavish light shows and nocturnal adventures
Florid flummery
Lightning sometimes strikes twice. English Touring Opera hit topical gold last spring when, wholly by coincidence, they found themselves touring…
A feast for the ears
Sir Hubert Parry was upgraded from knight bachelor to baronet by King Edward VII in 1902, and my goodness he…
Pot-washers and pole-dancers
The Royal Opera has come over all baroque. In the Linbury Theatre, they’re hosting Irish National Opera’s production of Vivaldi’s…
Spelling disaster
When you think of Handel’s Amadigi (in so far as anyone thinks about the composer’s rarely staged, also-ran London score…
Without borders
Community music-making is the unifying jewel in the British crown, says James MacMillan
Drama vs display
It is amazing what fine performances you can get beamed to your computer these days. Slightly less amazing is the…
Born of the moment
It’s quite a title sequence. Puccini swells on the soundtrack and words flash before your eyes. ‘Ecstatic!’ ‘Spellbound!’ ‘Passionate!’ ‘Dazzled!’…
The original Edinburgh festival
James Sadler’s 1815 balloon flight, a Fringe first, heralded the greatest musical extravaganza that Scotland had ever seen, says John D. Halliday
Bigamists, lunatics and adventurers
The world of 19th-century British music was raucous, but are there any masterpieces waiting to be rediscovered? wonders Richard Bratby
Meet the unrivalled Sun King of early music, William Christie
It’s morning in the garden of William Christie, and he’s talking about home improvements. ‘I planted three pines up there…
Joyce DiDonato seduces you within the first 10 minutes: Royal Opera’s Agrippina reviewed
‘Laws bow down before the desire to rule…’ Centuries before ‘proroguing’ had entered British breakfast-table vocabulary there was Handel’s Agrippina,…
The Holy Grail of concert-going: I Fagiolini deliver serious musicianship that never takes itself too seriously
We’ve all read the article. It does the rounds with the dispiriting regularity of an unwanted dish on a sushi…
Desperate mothers, abandoned babies: the tragic story of London’s foundlings
One of the oddest of Bloomsbury’s event venues must be the Foundling Museum. The handsome building on Coram’s Fields houses…
