Opera
I doubt Goethe intended Werther’s sorrows to be as unremitting as this
There are some things the French do better than everyone else. Cheese, military defeats and extra-marital affairs are a given,…
Please let’s have more musicals like this Kiss Me, Kate at Opera North
Opera North’s new production of Cole Porter’s masterwork Kiss Me, Kate has been so widely and justly praised that I…
Lady killer
‘Kiss me, Sergei! Kiss me hard! Kiss me until the icons fall and split!’ sings Katerina Ismailova, adulterous antiheroine of…
Incomprehensible genius
London’s Goethe-Institut has a two-month season of films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder (whose 70th anniversary it’s celebrating), but only five…
All roads lead to Callas
Bellini belongs to that category of not-quite-great operatic composers whose works are also very difficult to perform adequately, and don’t…
Shtumming the spiel
London may cry foul over Hamlet’s misplaced to-be-ing and not-to-be-ing but Edinburgh is in raptures over a Magic Flute which…
Strauss-ful
Richard Strauss’s Daphne is one of the operas he wrote during the excruciatingly long Indian summer of his composing life,…
Watching the clocks
When I saw the first performance of this production of Ravel’s two operas at Glyndebourne three years ago, I thought…
Farewell to the City’s stroppy regulator: a modest sop for the new bank tax
A City insider at last month’s Mansion House dinner told me the Financial Conduct Authority had become ‘a bit of…
Salieri’s revenge
Magical transformations are a commonplace of opera. We see our heroes turned into animals, trees, statues; witness wild beasts turned…
Shaw hand
When is a rape not a rape? It’s an unsettling question — far more so than anything offered up by…
Show and Tell
There’s no such thing as a tasteful rape scene — or there certainly shouldn’t be. It’s an act of grossest…
Better than Bayreuth
Which of Wagner’s mature dramas is the most challenging, for performers and spectators? The one you’re seeing at the moment,…
Country house opera
I stole a blanket last night. Rather a nice one, in fact. I feel bad about it, of course, but…
Between Kafka and Crossroads
We opera critics love gazing into crystal balls. We’re particularly good at discovering Ed Milibands and backing them to the…
The claret of the gods
I cannot remember a jollier lunch. There are two brothers, Sebastian and Nicholas Payne, both practical epicureans. They have made…
Blowing hot and cold
The opera director David Alden has never been one to tread the straight and narrow. Something kinky would emerge, I’m…
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
For anyone who has been interested in classical vocal music since the middle of the last century, whether choral, operatic…
Long life
It’s June, and the country-house summer opera festivals are now in full swing. Glyndebourne, which opened the season last month,…
Carmen v. Carmen
It’s been a busy operatic week, with a nearly great concert performance of Parsifal in Birmingham on Sunday (reviewed by…
Lost boys
In Beryl Bainbridge’s novel An Awfully Big Adventure the producer Meredith Potter issues a doughty injunction on the subject of…
Polite pillage
Forget the pollsters and political pundits — English National Opera called it first and called it Right when it programmed…
Ways of hearing
‘What gives your lies such power?’ asks the bewildered Sicilian leader in Szymanowski’s opera Krol Roger. The question is addressed…
Triple triumph
Three staples of the Italian repertoire, performed and seen in very different circumstances, have confirmed my view that they deserve…
Off colour
Big slats of orange, burning yellows, an Adriatic in electric blue: I wish I’d bought my sunglasses to the Royal…
