Royal Opera
British opera companies and orchestras must start investing in native talent
Brexit and Covid have pushed us out of the common musical market and thrown us back on homegrown sprouts. Good, says Norman Lebrecht
The grotesque unevenness of Mozart’s Requiem
It is amazing what fine performances you can get beamed to your computer these days. Slightly less amazing is the…
A new opera that deserves more than one outing: Royal Opera's New Dark Age reviewed
It’s quite a title sequence. Puccini swells on the soundtrack and words flash before your eyes. ‘Ecstatic!’ ‘Spellbound!’ ‘Passionate!’ ‘Dazzled!’…
Why imperfect operas like Don Carlo are more interesting than perfect ones
In the 62 years since I first heard and saw Don Carlo, in the famous and long-lasting production by Visconti…
Handsome and revivable but I wasn’t moved: Royal Opera’s Death in Venice reviewed
Premièred within two years of each other, Luchino Visconti’s film and Benjamin Britten’s opera Death in Venice both take Thomas…
Joyce DiDonato seduces you within the first 10 minutes: Royal Opera’s Agrippina reviewed
‘Laws bow down before the desire to rule…’ Centuries before ‘proroguing’ had entered British breakfast-table vocabulary there was Handel’s Agrippina,…
More Grace Kelly than Grace Jones: Welsh National Opera’s Carmen reviewed
How do you take your Carmen? Sun-drenched exotic fantasy with a side order of castanets, or cool and gritty, sour…
Testosterone and passion: Royal Opera’s Marriage of Figaro reviewed
Another turn around the block for David McVicar’s handsome 1830s Figaro at the Royal Opera — the sixth since the…
ENO’s Jack the Ripper needs to decide if it wants to be a gore-fest or social history
Is it possible to write a feminist opera about Jack the Ripper? Composer Iain Bell thinks it is, and his…
A masterclass of menace and magnificence: Romeo and Juliet reviewed
Two households, both alike in dignity. Capulets in red tights, Montagues in green. Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet opens in…
The most glorious singing anyone born after 1970 will ever have heard: La forza del destino reviewed
To stage Verdi’s Il Trovatore, they say, is easy: you just need the four greatest singers in the world. The…
One nasty moment aside, the ENB’s Manon is superlative
If you like the BBC’s Les Misérables, you’ll love English National Ballet’s Manon. Manon, in Kenneth MacMillan’s telling, is The…
I genuinely liked Siegfried – which almost never happens: Royal Opera’s Ring cycle reviewed
‘On Brünnhilde’s rock I drew the breath that called your name; so swift was my journey here.’ It’s Act Two…
Longborough continues to be a refuge for British Wagnerians fleeing idiotic productions
Longborough Festival Opera, refuge for British Wagnerians fleeing unidiomatic musical performances and idiotically irrelevant and insulting productions, has rounded off…
Much is routine – and a fair amount is worse: Glyndebourne’s Madama Butterfly reviewed
There is no such thing as a moderately good performance of Madama Butterfly, or, to be more precise, it’s not…
How do these Shaolin monks square six shows a week with monking?
The Shaolin monks are no strangers to the stage. Their home in Dengfeng is a major stop on the Chinese…
At last, a great achievement at the Royal Opera: Macbeth reviewed
At last, a great time at the Royal Opera: a magnificent performance, in every way, of Verdi’s Macbeth, curiously but…
A colossal bore: Royal Opera’s Carmen reviewed
The new production of Bizet’s Carmen at the Royal Opera has received mixed reviews. It shouldn’t have done. They should…
Royal Opera’s Tosca is a sloppy affair
One of the Royal Opera’s greatest virtues is the care it takes with its revivals, even those that are virtually…
More than ever, this was Ulysses’ show: Royal Opera’s Return of Ulysses reviewed
Spoiler alert: the final image of John Fulljames’s production of Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses at the Roundhouse is haunting.…
The National Youth Orchestra showed that they’re the equal of any professional band
Everyone knows — don’t they? — that the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain is the UK’s youngest world-class symphony…
Debussy, Tippett and Wagner: the musical treats of 2018
Claude Debussy died on 25 March 1918 to the sound of explosions. Four days earlier, the Kaiser’s army had deployed…
Musically superb but there isn’t a moment where one feels for anyone: Semiramide reviewed
The late arch-Rossinian Philip Gossett regarded Semiramide as a neoclassical work, vaguely and alarmingly suggesting to me a musical equivalent…
DIY Bohème
The Royal Opera’s one production that, it has always confidently been claimed, need never be replaced has been replaced. John…
Royal Opera’s Tannhäuser is one of the ugliest stagings I have set eyes on
Cursed, or perhaps blessed, with almost no visual memory at all, I had almost completely forgotten what the Royal Opera’s…
