Opera North
Lost in translation
About 15 minutes into act one of Jenufa, the student in the next seat leaned over to her companions and…
Twin peaks
Is there a more beautiful aria than ‘O mio babbino caro’ from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi? There are more overwhelming moments…
Crime and punishment
In one of the more peculiar concerts that I have been to at the Royal Festival Hall, Vladimir Jurowski conducted…
Blood and lust
Virtue, hide thyself! The Coronation of Poppea opens with a warning and closes with a love duet for a concubine…
Virtuoso Wagner
It seems a very short time since I interviewed Richard Farnes about Opera North’s planned Ring cycle, the dramas to…
Northern light
Purists might have winced at Opera North’s advertisement for its latest revival of La Bohème. ‘If you see one musical…
Preparatory studies
Opera seems almost always to have been acutely concerned with its own future. These days this is most often manifested…
Musical feasts
I wasn’t going to write about Handel’s Rodelinda, wasn’t even intending to go, but thanks to the kindness of the…
The year in opera
I’ve been hoping that in this, the last of my weekly columns on opera, I would be able to strike…
Disturbed by Britten
This week chanced to give me a fascinating study in contrasts and comparisons: Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek at the Linbury Studio,…
North stars
Siegfried is, everyone agrees, the hardest of the Ring dramas to bring off. The first and almost insurmountable problem is…
