Wagner
Bracing and provocative – but would Wagner have approved? Arcola’s Rheingold reviewed
When it comes to the opening of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, Mark Twain probably put it as well as anyone: ‘Out…
The miracle of Longborough – the company that broke the mould for summer opera
At Longborough Festival Opera, Richard Wagner is on the roof. Literally: his statue stands on top of the little pink…
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…
An exalted experience even without a convincing central character: Siegfried in Edinburgh reviewed
There’s one big problem with Wagner’s Siegfried, and the clue’s in the name. None of Wagner’s mature works hangs so…
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…
How Debussy slipped past Wagner into the unknown
A spectre haunted the first weekend of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s Debussy Festival: the spectre of Richard Wagner.…
Celebrating Carter was one of the most energising musical occasions in years
Das Rheingold at the Royal Festival Hall was, all told, a disappointment, but it might not have been had there…
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…
Classy and classic
The Edinburgh International Festival began with a double helping of incest. Curiously, Greek — Mark-Anthony Turnage’s East End retelling of…
The morality of conducting
Now he is the greatest figure for me, in the world. [Toscanini is] the last proud, noble, unbending representative (with…
New kid on the block
The new Grange Park Opera at Horsley is amazing, as everyone who visits it must agree. In less than a…
The supremes
When I interviewed Richard Farnes in Leeds six years ago about Opera North’s project of performing the complete Ring, he…
Verdi
Verdi has a peculiar if not unique place in the pantheon of great composers. If you love classical music at…
Bell canto
Cursed, or perhaps blessed, with almost no visual memory at all, I had almost completely forgotten what the Royal Opera’s…
Fade to grey
Every ballet company wants a box-office earner. But why Scottish Ballet’s leader Christopher Hampson kept on at David Dawson until…
Service with a smile
He’s been billed as the new Pied Piper but it’s going to take a while for Tom Service to quite…
Love at first sight
Now the kids are back for the school holidays, I have a licence to watch complete trash again. No more…
…Long live ENO!
The three most moving, transporting death scenes in 19th-century opera all involve the respective heroines mounting a funeral pyre —…
Northern lights
Opera North continues to be the most reliable, inspiring, resourceful and enterprising opera company in the United Kingdom, and all…
Boulez est mort
Pierre Boulez, who died last week at the age of 90, would have been the last person, one hopes, to…
How the Germans made Glyndebourne
This is hardly the time of year for picnics on the lawn, but I have nevertheless had a week dominated…
Bored by Brahms
Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet begins, writes his biographer Jan Swafford, with ‘a gentle, dying-away roulade that raises a veil of autumnal…
Glyndebourne caters to the lower-middle classes not past-it toffs
What is Glyndebourne? A middle-aged Bullingdon. That’s a common view: a luxury bun fight for past-it toffs who glug champagne,…
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,…
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…
