Opera
Two for the road
Jane Glover follows the rapturous Wolfgang around Venice, Bologna, Florence and Naples on three journeys that would change the young composer’s life
Taking the biscuit
The fun starts early in Beckett’s Endgame. Within minutes of opening his mouth, blind bully Hamm decides to starve his…
Sonic enchantment
We used to call it a ‘meat and two veg’ programme, back in my concert planning days: the reliable set…
A performance with teeth
It’s the Edinburgh International Festival, and Barrie’s back in town. Once, Edinburgh was pretty much the only place that you…
Suspended reality
Aix is an odd place. It should be charming, with its dishevelled squares, Busby Berkeley-esque fountains, pretty ochres and pinks.…
Winging it
‘Audience Choice’ was the promise at the Budapest Festival Orchestra’s Sunday matinee Prom, and come on – who could resist…
All’s well that ends well
Bernstein’s Candide is the operetta that ought to work, but never quite does. Voltaire’s featherlight cakewalk through human misery, set…
Here comes the Hun
Hungarian culture is living through a golden age, says Igor Toronyi-Lalic, and the West has much to learn from it
Testament of cliché
‘Ring out your bells for me, ivory keys! Weave out your spell for me, orchestra please!’ It’s lush stuff, the…
To die for
There are a lot of corpses on stage at the end of Charles Edwards’s production of Tristan & Isolde for…
Fire and fizz
Are you supposed to laugh at the end of Don Giovanni? Audiences often do, and they did at the end…
All quiet on the western front
Zoe Strimpel talks to the anti-Putin Russian artists who have been cancelled since the invasion of Ukraine
Florid flummery
Lightning sometimes strikes twice. English Touring Opera hit topical gold last spring when, wholly by coincidence, they found themselves touring…
No laughing matter
As stage directions go, the The Magic Flute opens with a zinger. ‘Tamino enters from the right wearing a splendid…
But what about the plot?
You wouldn’t like Tamerlano when he’s angry. ‘My heart seethes with rage,’ he sings, in Act III of Handel’s opera…
Miniature rite of spring
Imagine a folk dance without music. Actually, you don’t have to: poke about on YouTube and you’ll find footage from…
Anthem for end times
It was so dark, my friend noted, you could have had sex or done a Hitler salute. No stage lights,…
Fifty shades of grey
Grey. More grey. So very, very grey. That’s the main visual impression left by Robert Carsen’s new production of Verdi’s…
Losing the plot
Leos Janacek disliked long operas, and the first act of The Makropulos Affair is a masterclass in how to set…
National disasters
It is high time the Arts Council put ENO and ENB out of their misery, says Rupert Christiansen
More depravity, please
The first night of the new season at Covent Garden was cancelled when the solemn news came through. The second…
A fine romance
One swallow might not make a summer, but it certainly helps rounds the season off. ‘Perhaps, like the swallow, you…
Hail, César!
In the Rodgers and Hart musical On Your Toes, a Broadway hoofer is forced to work at a community college,…
Child’s play
‘Germany’s greatest artistic asset, its music, is in danger,’ warned The Spectator in June 1937. Reporting from the leading new-music…
