 News: Edinburgh International Festival announce details of this year's exciting music programme There's an exuberant new-world theme to this year's Edinburgh International Festival, in a programme that features exciting and challenging performances from North, South and Central America, and also from Australasia, complemented by old-world... more> |
 Concert Review: Lucy Crowe and William Berger lead an interesting evening of the Handel Festival There seems to be something of a curse blighting London's tenors at the moment; hot on the heels of Domingo's withdrawal from Tamerlano we had both John Tessier and his understudy unable to perform in ENO's Elixir (resulting in a polyglot performance, with guest... more> |
 Opera Review: Gounod's Roméo et Juliette at the San Diego Opera On March 13, San Diego Opera continued its 2010 season with the opening performance of Charles Gounod's Roméo et Juliette. Previously seen in 1973 and 1998, this is the third production of Gounod's tragic love story in the company's history. The big news this time around, was the double debut of husband and wife singers Stephen Costello... more> |
 Concert Review: A thrilling Mahler 6 from a resurgent RSNO under Stephane Denève Word is getting around that Mr. Denève is developing the RSNO into a unit of international calibre. An almost-capacity Usher Hall audience was treated to a glorious exhibition of orchestral performance at its finest, a truly spectacular blaze of passionate intensity, fitting for Mahler at his... more> |
 CD Review: Felicity Lott's new album - Call Me Flott At the age of 62, Dame Felicity Lott is still in command of a formidable instrument. The top of her soprano is less creamy than it was, but she still creates a beautiful sound, has excellent tuning and sings with crisp diction. For her latest release, she's joined forces with regular pianist partner Graham Johnson for a CD of... more> |
 Opera News: New York City Opera announces details of the 2010-11 season There is good news at Lincoln Center these days. A couple of weeks back, the always reliable Metropolitan Opera company announced an exciting, if not terribly ground-breaking, 2010-11 season full of repertory staples and a couple of company premieres. Now, the much less dependable New York City Opera... more> |
 Opera Review: Marianne Pousseur stunning in Aperghis' Ismène The 2008 edition of the festival had seen the premiere of a remarkable collaborative work based on the left wing Greek poet Yiannis Ritsos' Ismène. The homonymous opera for solo voice and electronic score was 'created' by Marianne Pousseur and Enrico Bagnoli under the auspices of the theatre... more> |
 Concert Review: Sir John Tomlinson and David Owen Norris on dazzling form in a Michelangelo-themed recital in London Tomlinson seemed to be treating each of the three song cycles as mini operas, although – in spite of three different languages in the three cycles – describing the event as an evening of opera in three acts might also be appropriate. Tomlinson wore a... more> |
 Opera Review: Comic operas by Kunneke and Berlioz in Berlin and Paris Keeping the flame of comic opera burning is the responsibility of two theatres sharing the same name in Paris and Berlin. It is a great responsibility, and requires state and city subsidies, as aficionados of this limited genre today could hardly be expected to keep these two theatres open solely through ticket... more> |
 Opera News: The Royal Opera announces details of the 2010-11 season at Covent Garden New productions of Wagner's Tannhauser, Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride, Massenet's Cendrillon and Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur provide several of the highlights of the season, along with the world premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole. The stars lined up to appear include... more> |
 Opera Review: Britten's Albert Herring is stunning in John Copley's Royal Academy production With veteran stage director John Copley in charge, I expected high standards at the Royal Academy Opera's production of Albert Herring. However, I was astonished to find such a level of competence both on the stage and in the orchestra pit, which could be the envy of many.... more> |
 Opera Review: Wagner's Rienzi triumphs as Meistersinger disappoints in Berlin Wagner's Rienzi (1842) is seldom staged today. It is very long, lasting over five hours. It is not filled with Wagner's most distinguished music, despite the fact that the glorious Der fliegende Holländer followed just three months later at the same Dresden Court Theatre — now the Semper Oper. Some critics... more> |
 Book Review: A study of Strauss's ballet collaborations Ballet is not the first genre you think about when you consider Richard Strauss. The master of the orchestral tone poem, the prolific opera composer of the first half of the twentieth century, the artful setter of many a Lied – but Strauss and ballet? Well, it may come as a surprise to some Strauss lovers that ... more> |
 CD Reviews: New Alpine Symphonies from Haitink and Bychkov (LSO Live/Profil) It's an ironic coincidence that as we get into this pair of Mahler anniversaries we have two new recordings of Strauss's Alpine Symphony. As studies of the symphony's long gestation have shown, it was finally completed as both a tribute to Mahler the man and a critique of what Strauss... more> |
 Opera Review: A Domingo-less Tamerlano fails to please at Covent Garden Emerging from the Royal Opera House after four and a half hours of the much-hyped, long-awaited Tamerlano, the absence of Domingo was the very least of many disappointments. Ill-conceived and poorly executed, Graham Vick's production is as monochrome as its colour scheme: a tragedy in all the wrong ways... more> |
 Opera Review: Riccardo Muti makes an auspicious Met debut in Verdi's Attila New York's Metropolitan Opera is currently presenting Verdi's ninth opera, Attila, in a deluxe, only partially successful new production. Originally premiered at the 'Teatro La Fenice' in Venice in 1846, it is a problematic work in many ways, and cannot compare with the composer's greatest scores... more> |
 Book Review: Nigel Simeone's new study sheds new light on West Side Story Quite aside from the depth of the insights made by the author Nigel Simeone on nearly every page, the reason why this book represents a significant new contribution to the literature on the Broadway musical is that it is much more thorough in its discussion of primary resources than almost any other study I can... more> |
 Concert Review: Lang Lang returns to Baden-Baden Although blessed with a never-failing archive-like memory, programmes on Lang Lang's ceaseless recital tours are largely restricted to a number of staple components. This was also the case at his recital in the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus. Beethoven's C Major Sonata, Op.2, was followed by the Appassionata as the centrepiece... more> |
 Opera News: Natalie Dessay withdraws from the Met's Hamlet The Metropolitan Opera in New York has announced that coloratura soprano Natalie Dessay has withdrawn from their up-coming production of Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet due to illness. Replacing Dessay will be internationally acclaimed coloratura soprano Marlis Petersen who originally was to have sung only... more> |
 Opera Review: ENO's most successful contemporary opera production gets revived ENO and the Met's co-production of Philip Glass' 1980 semi-narrative opera on Mahatma Gandhi, Satyagraha, premiered to great acclaim in London in 2007 before travelling to New York for a similarly successful run in 2009. It returns with great fanfare to the Coliseum this month, announced... more> |
 Concert Review: Maurizio Pollini celebrates Chopin at the RFH Over the last few years, Maurizio Pollini has earned a reputation for inconsistency. At his best, few can touch him for poetry, grace and power, but this second Chopin birthday concert, given as part of Polska! Year, found him some way below that standard. The programme he had chosen threw up one challenge... more> |
 Concert Review: Leading ensemble Grup Instrumental de Valencia at Kings Place The performance formed part of Integra, an EU-funded project led by Birmingham Conservatoire which seeks to promote live electronic music and the development of technology for that end through cross promotion of five new music ensembles and six research centres. As it... more> |
 Book Review: Philosopher Roger Scruton's new book for Continuum Aesthetics is political. And all interesting aesthetic writing is motivated by a clear political
agenda. It is important to remember this when reading Roger
Scruton's two-part anthology of philosophical writing, Understanding Music. (The first part supplements the earlier Aesthetics of Music... more> |
 Festival Preview: MaerzMusik 2010 in Berlin, 19-28 March Later this month
the MaerzMusik 2010 festival will take over Berlin for eleven days, from 19 - 28 March, in what promises to be an exhilarating display of the latest in contemporary music and sound art. The theme of this year's festival is Utopia [Lost]. Challenging the now-pervasive... more> |
 Concert Review: LSO and Christopher Maltman under Colin Davis in MacMillan Watching the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Colin Davis, and Christopher Maltman's barnstorming performance of James McMillan's 2007 St. John Passion in the Barbican last night was a strangely unfulfilling experience. Any new setting of a text such as this one must justify its... more> |
 Concert Review: BCMG and EXAUDI celebrate Howard Skempton in Birmingham The concert began with the premiere of Only the Sound Remains, a work unique in Skempton's portfolio due to the size of its instrumental forces and its prolonged length. The piece exemplified the gentleness and aural clarity characteristic of Skempton's other works, with an organic... more> |
 Opera Review: Damrau and Flórez in the Met's La Fille du Régiment Laurent Pelly's revival of La Fille du Régiment returned to the Met for its 101st performance on 19 February.
A boisterous tomboy, raised by a group of soldiers from the 21st Regiment, is forced to assume all the airs and graces of an aristocrat. Donizetti's humorous plot and delightful score has... more> |
 Concert Review: Philip Jeck and Janeck Schaefer on dazzling form at King's Place King's Place innovative practice of themed programming continued this week with an intriguing festival entitled and described as Arctic Circle: The Resonance of Music With Water. Maritime subjects have concerned writers of music drama immemorial, from Sibelius to Bryars to... more> |
 News: ENO announce Satyagraha: Remix On Sunday March 7, the company is inviting members of the public to bring along instruments, vocal cords, and 'some inspiration' to the Coliseum, where they will get a chance to explore the politics and art of Philip Glass' Satyagraha, the composer's semi-opera on the early life of Mahatma Gandhi... more> |
 Opera News: The Metropolitan Opera announces the 2010-11 Season The world renowned Metropolitan Opera House in New York City held a press conference on February 22, 2010 to unveil the details of the 2010-2011 season. General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine announced plans for twenty-eight operas... more> |
 Opera Review: Nelly Miricioiu and Alan Opie in La traviata (Queen Elizabeth Hall) It was a shame that legendary soprano Nelly Miricioiu was unwell, because this performance of Verdi’s La traviata was to be a celebration of her tenth anniversary of appearing with the Chelsea Opera Group. But not even the infection – which was clearly so bad that she was almost forced to pull out... more> |
 Concert Review: Krystian Zimerman plays Chopin at the Festival Hall The South Bank Centre has been rather modest in its celebration of the Chopin year. It's a clearly a matter of quality over quantity: no complete surveys here, rather two Birthday Recitals a week apart, nestled into their usual piano series. Those birthday concerts just happen, however, to feature two of... more> |
 CD Review: Piers Lane and the Goldner Quartet in Dvorak (Hyperion) Antonín Dvorák's two works for piano quintet herald from very different stages in the composer's development. The First Quintet, Op. 5 was written in 1872 by a struggling viola player whose attempts find a unique compositional voice led towards often astounding, if underappreciated, experimentalism... more> |
 Opera News: Placido Domingo withdraws from Covent Garden Tamerlano The Royal Opera House has announced that Placido Domingo will no longer appear in his scheduled March 2010 performances of Handel's Tamerlano at Covent Garden. He will be replaced by Kurt Streit. After being in physical discomfort and lower abdominal pain for over a week during his performances... more> |
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 Concert Review: Dietrich Henschel and Tom Randle in Das Lied von der Erde at BOZAR Belgium's Bozar Music is celebrating the two Mahler anniversaries — the 150th birthday this year and the centenary of his death next year — with a complete cycle of Mahler's symphonic work shared out over two seasons and amongst the country's orchestras. This evening it was the turn of the... more> |
 Interview: John Wilson, conductor of the BBC's MGM Prom, on Opera North's Ruddigore Although the BBC Proms are renowned for bringing many of the world's greatest classical artists to London, the concert that drew the most attention last year was – quite unexpectedly – a programme of songs from the classic MGM musicals of the 1930s, '40s and '50s. The man behind it all... more> |
 Opera Review: The Gambler opens at Covent Garden Without doubt, Richard Jones's production of Prokofiev's opera The Gambler makes for an exciting, even fascinating theatrical event. However, some of the story line of the libretto is problematic, and – although powerful – Prokofiev's score is not immediate. The libretto is based on Dostoevsky's novel, which is a dark... more> |
 Opera Review: The Elixir of Love opens at ENO It was interesting to return to ENO within a week of having seen their Lucia di Lammermoor for a new production of The Elixir of Love. Donizetti's two most famous works span the generic spectrum, with Lucia at the most melodramatic end and Elixir at the most comic. And yet, just as Lucia was paced too leadenly for the visceral... more> |
 Opera Review: Domingo in Simon Boccanegra at the Met "It's good to be the king," proclaims a pompous Louis XVI (a.k.a. Mel Brooks) in the 1981 comedy flick, History of the World, Part I. While few would argue the wisdom of Brooks' iconic catch-phrase, the Met's February 6 performance of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra suggests that it may be even better to be Plácido Domingo... more> |
 Concert Review: Daniel Barenboim honours Chopin in fine style in Brussels The tour, on tonight's evidence, provides audiences with the opportunity to witness a pianist who at the age of 67 is arguably in the finest form of his life. Not especially known for his Chopin, the mature Barenboim brings a range of musical and personal experience to the mysteries... more> |
 Interview: British Bass Matthew Rose on his upcoming recitals, operas, and British musical life No regular operagoer in the UK can fail to have noticed the upward trajectory of young British bass Matthew Rose in the last few years. Onstage at the ROH, ENO, WNO, Glyndebourne and the other summer festivals, he has consistently attracted favourable reviews, starting with 'promising'... more> |
 Interview: German soprano Angela Denoke on The Royal Opera's new The Gambler Tonight, The Royal Opera will premiere a completely new production of Prokofiev's The Gambler. Directed by ROH stalwart Richard Jones, the production is sung in English and stars many of the country's leading singers, not least Sir John Tomlinson. But the cast also includes Angela Denoke... more> |
 Concert Review: Pat Metheny debuts his ambitious Orchestrion project in Brussels Metheny's muse has recently led him into even stranger territories, as evidenced by his new project, Orchestrion, which comes in the form of album, machine, and tour. But more of that anon. Metheny began his concert in support of the project in Brussels' packed Bozar Centre For Fine Arts with an... more> |
 CD Review: Semyon Bychkov's outstanding new Lohengrin In his notes accompanying this superb new recording of Wagner's Lohengrin, conductor Semyon Bychkov shares his personal journey toward the discovery of a new perspective on the character of the scheming, evil Ortrud. Understandably perplexed about how we, as listeners, can feel empathy... more> |
 Concert Review: Sabine Meyer and her ensemble on fine form in Brussels Bläserensemble Sabine Meyer have developed (in line with their leader) a strong reputation over their twenty year existence for imaginative programming, a reputation which extends backwards in time to neglected works of the past, just as it does outwards to new works of the present.... more> |
 Opera Review: Lucia di Lammermoor is revived at ENO There are many striking images and ideas in David Alden's production of Lucia di Lammermoor, currently being revived for the first time by English National Opera. Alden views the Lucia-Enrico relationship in an alarming light, with a mixture of paedophilia (in the depiction of Lucia as a young, innocent girl... more> |
 CD Review: Diana Damrau's COLORaturaS (Virgin) Sooner or later, every successful coloratura soprano with the good fortune of having a recording contract must issue at least one collection of 'chestnuts'. These are the arias known by every aficionado, and thus, recent singers may be easily compared with their predecessors' recorded legacies.
While every selection... more> |
 Concert Review: Magdalena Kožená and András Schiff in recital at the Wigmore Hall The recital opened with six songs from Janácek's fifty-three Moravian Folk Poetry Songs. If I did not follow the song texts in the programme notes, I would have not known that the songs – Love, Promise, Uneasy, Carnation, Tears of Comfort and Musicians – expressed.. more> |
 Concert Review: Style and sparkle in Schubert's four hand piano music There is a particular charm to the format 'one keyboard, four hands', not least because of the slack each player has to cut to the other: the mere sight of Steven Osborne and Paul Lewis negotiating overlapping hands in the middle area of the Steinway grand keyboard brings a smile... more> |
 Concert Review: The UK premiere of Maciejewski's Missa pro defunctis There is a trend in 20th-century Polish music – dating back to Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater – for giant vocal-orchestral works that very often set religious texts. One thinks of Penderecki's St Luke Passion and Polish Requiem, Górecki's Second Symphony … right up to Pawel Mykietyn's St Mark Passion... more> |
 Interview: Tenor John Tessier stars in ENO's new production of L'elisir d'amore February brings two Donizetti productions to the London Coliseum. English National Opera will present the composer's most famous tragedy and comedy so that audiences can compare them side by side. First comes the return of David Alden's production of Lucia di Lammermoor, and the... more> |
 Concert Review: Bryn Terfel in a thrilling Elijah at King's College Cambridge Chapel 'An evening with Bryn Terfel' was the byline for this concert in King's College Chapel, Cambridge on Monday evening and this charismatic artist did not disappoint. To an already eclectic programme he added two favourite Welsh songs, beautifully articulated over slightly... more> |
 Opera Review: Jonathan Miller's Cosi fan tutte returns to Covent Garden The term 'classic production', while it encompasses some of the operatic greats, nevertheless often brings with it a sense of rigidity, of works frozen in a heyday increasingly removed from contemporary sensibilities. Among those directors whose works tend towards the 'classic' Jonathan Miller currently... more> |
 Book Review: Broadway composer Meredith Willson's two memoirs are republished In 1957, the curtain went up on two of the most successful Broadway musicals of all time. But while Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's West Side Story grew in popularity and importance as the years rolled by, Meredith Willson's The Music Man never again had quite the impact of... more> |
 Opera Review: A stunning Elektra from Brussels The production is set roughly in the forties — the servants wear army uniforms apposite to the period, whilst the opening scene takes place in a locker room used by the serving women — but the period and context are not shoved down the audience's throats. It is rather the complex psychological compulsions... more> |
 Interview: Soprano Adrianna Pieczonka performs Simon Boccanegra with Domingo at the Met A few days before her debut as Amelia Grimaldi in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, soprano Adrianne Pieczonka agreed to interrupt her pre-performance rest period to talk with me about her background and career as one of the most successful sopranos... more> |
 Opera Review: The Royal Opera revives The Rake's Progress Although I am familiar with Ninette de Valois' beautiful ballet – her 'Homage to Hogarth' – of the same title, I had not heard The Rake's Progress until the Royal Opera House's current revival (of their July 2008 production). I cannot make comparisons with past stagings of this... more> |
 News: BBC Music Magazine Announces Public Voting for its 2010 Awards The BBC Music Magazine Awards are now in their fifth year, and they have become firmly established as a reliable benchmark of mainstream classical repertoire assessment. These particular awards are one of the few opportunities the public have to take active part in the deciding of major classical prizes. The... more> |
 Concert News: The LSO and the Barbican announce details of their forthcoming seasons Valery Gergiev continues his (generally) acclaimed tour through Russian repertoire with a number of concerts featuring major works by Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, and Rodion Shchedrin. His Mahler cycle continues alike. Highlights include Shchedrin's Carmen Suite and Pianos ... more> |
 News: San Francisco Opera announces the 2010-11 Season, including Placido Domingo, Karita Mattila and the complete Ring While in the middle of an exciting season with Nicola Luisotti as new music director, the San Francisco Opera has just announced its 2010-11 season, revealing an equally exciting series of operas and events. Ten productions will be on the War Memorial... more> |
 CD Review: Dazzling performances of Handel's 1720 keyboard suites Handel's 1720 Eight Great Suites for keyboard, despite being comparatively neglected in his output, have received many fine and diverse recordings over the years. On piano, Sviatoslav Richter's late-seventies reading of these eclectic and colourful works has long been a ... more> |
 Opera Review: Elina Garanca and Roberto Alagna in the Met's Carmen It is often said that we are the sum total of the decisions we make in our lives. Indeed, when Don José sheds his honor, his soul and even his mother for the beguiling gypsy, audiences generally hold him accountable for his poor choices even while dutifully mindful of the nature and power of his addiction... more> |
 Opera Review: Renee Fleming and Susan Graham in the Met's Rosenkavalier 'What a drag it is getting old,' reads the opening line of The Rolling Stones' 1965 hit, Mother's Little Helper – a sentiment echoed, with greater subtlety perhaps, by the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. But Saturday's Metropolitan Opera performance of the Strauss masterpiece – led by a handsome pair of singer... more> |
 News: Thielemann's Elektra in Baden-Baden In its Winter Festival (29 January to 7 February) the Festspielhaus of Baden-Baden presents a revised production of the late Herbert Wernicke's ELEKTRA under Christian Thielemann and the Munich Philharmonic. Katarina Dalayman was to sing Elektra but she was taken ill, and this
gave Linda Watson the opportunity to make her... more> |
 CD Review: Yannick Nézet-Séguin tackles Bruckner's Eighth (Atma) Yannick Nézet-Séguin is arguably the most up-and-coming conductor in the classical music world as we enter 2010. As well as being in his second season as both Principal Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Principal Guest Conductor of the LPO, the young French-Canadian maestro continues... more> |
 Feature: West Side Story Documented: Professor Nigel Simeone on his new book Why write a book on West Side Story? For me, this question answered itself while I was on a research trip to Washington DC a few years ago – during a blisteringly hot August – when I was able to look at the West Side Story manuscripts in the Leonard Bernstein Collection at the Library of Congress... more> |
 Concert Review: Borodin Quartet perform in London The most compelling attributes of the Borodin Quartet are their homogeneity as an ensemble and their pure, gimmick-free playing. Showmanship has no part in their performance or, indeed, in any part of their appearance on stage. There is no victory march to and from the stage, their concert attire does not... more> |
 Podcast: West End star Maria Friedman talks about her upcoming Great British Songbook CD On 13 April, Maria Friedman will release her first completely new studio album in over a decade. Entitled Maria Friedman Celebrates The Great British Songbook, the CD contains a wide mix of music written by British composers, including everything from Purcell to the... more> |
 Feature: Concerts Review of 2009 - the highlights of the past twelve months Despite
the ongoing global financial crisis, the past year has seen a strong
showing from all of London's major concert halls, with the
resurgent LPO, Philharmonia and BBC SO having
particularly strong years. Smaller and newer venues such as Café
Oto, the Warehouse... more> |
 New Year's Preview: Classical music highlights in North America Where to start picking the 2010 highlights of the North American musical world? It's truly a challenging task – but interesting and entertaining too. It's difficult to imagine a most exciting month than January in New York. For opera lovers, the Metropolitan Opera is definitely the place to be. Renée Fleming will return for... more> |
 Concert News: Simon Rattle looks to new directions in London and Baden-Baden When some months ago the entire future of the Easter Festival by the Berlin Philharmonic, traditionally held in Salzburg, was for technical reasons in jeopardy, Sir Simon Rattle and the Management of the orchestra approached Dr. Andreas Molich-Zebhauser, Intendant of the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden... more> |
 Feature: Opera Review of 2009 - the ups and downs of the past twelve months The financial crisis has dominated every aspect of life in 2009, and the opera world is no exception. Slashed budgets have led to the cancellation of new productions and even the closure of several opera companies in America; touring companies have reduced their number of performances... more> |
