Richard Strauss
The opera that wouldn’t die
Richard Bratby on the resurrection of wunderkind Erich Korngold’s long-neglected masterpiece
Even Nelsons’s miscalculations are fascinating: Leipzig Gewandhaus/Andris Nelsons, at the Barbican, reviewed
Imagine growing up with a whole orchestra as your plaything. Richard Strauss’s father was the principal horn of the Munich…
For fans of neglected, niche and uncool music, lockdown has been a blessing
When this whole mess is over, there’ll be a shortish MA thesis — or at least a blog post —…
Why orchestras are sounding better than ever under social-distancing
Our college choirmaster had a trick that he liked to deploy when he sensed that we were phoning it in.…
Thrilling energy & humour from Longborough Festival Opera: Ariadne auf Naxos reviewed
‘They’ve dined well, they’ve drunk their fill, their brains are dull and slow. They’ll sit snoozing in the dark until…
‘I was really, really scared’: Jonas Kaufmann opens up about his #MeToo moment
‘Hi, it’s Jonas.’ When the great tenor rings from Vienna, I ask if there are any topics he wants me…
Salon Strauss
An opera without singers, a Strauss orchestra of just 16, and an early music ensemble playing Mahler: welcome to the…
Viennese whirl
‘First performance: Vienna, October 3, 1880’ declares the programme for Opera della Luna’s new production of Johann Strauss’s The Queen’s…
Mistaken identity
This year’s Lucerne Festival is given its identity by having as its theme ‘Identity’. Since the word doesn’t mean anything,…
As with so many Strauss operas, Daphne's one redeeming feature is its end
Richard Strauss’s Daphne is one of the operas he wrote during the excruciatingly long Indian summer of his composing life,…
The Royal Opera House's Die Frau ohne Schatten – a dream solution to Strauss’s problem opera?
If ever an opera was weighed down by its creators’ joint ambition, it is Die Frau ohne Schatten. Richard Strauss…
Leipzig and Dresden are both staging Elektra. Which city wins?
Yet more performances of Elektra, Richard Strauss’s setting of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s ramped-up, neurosis-riddled 1903 reworking of Sophocles, are unlikely…
Overrated Strauss vs underrated Gluck
This is the first of my more-or-less monthly columns, the idea of which is to report on operatic events other…
Could this be the year of C.P.E. Bach?
Looking through the list of composers who celebrate some sort of anniversary in 2014 is a depressing business. I don’t…
