Opera
When Fauré played The Spectator
Gabriel Fauré composed his song cycle La bonne chanson in 1894 for piano and voice. But he added string parts…
Bristol’s new concert hall is extremely fine
Bristol has a new concert hall, and it’s rather good. The transformation of the old Colston Hall into the Bristol…
Across Britain punters are lapping up ultra-trad opera – the Arts Council will be disgusted
Another week at the opera, another evening with an elitist and ethically dubious art form. I love it; you love…
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…
Baffling and vile: ETO’s Manon Lescaut reviewed
In 1937, John Barbirolli took six pieces by Henry Purcell and arranged them for an orchestra of strings, horns and…
We have lost an unforgettable teacher and one of the greatest living critics
Tanner, the critic RICHARD BRATBY Michael Tanner (1935-2024), who died earlier this month, had such a vital mind and stood…
Can everyone please shut up about Maria Callas?
Rupert Christiansen on the cult of Callas
Juicy solution to the Purcell problem: Opera North’s Masque of Might reviewed
Another week, another attempt to solve the Purcell problem. There’s a problem? Well, yes, if you consider that a composer…
Tidal power
In David Alden’s production of Peter Grimes, the mob assembles before the music has even started – silhouetted at the…
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
