Die Frau ohne Schatten, Royal Opera House
Die Frau ohne Schatten is an opera awash with high-flown symbolism and dubious, if not downright dodgy, sub-Freudian psychology. It peddles ludicrous notions about the inherent conflict between spiritual and physical love, frowning at the sex that…
Rigoletto, English National Opera, London Coliseum
The hunchback slumps in his chair like some malevolent watchkeeper – master of all he surveys. But as the black front curtain is drawn back like a shroud or veil of deceit, the world according to Rigoletto…
Peter Grimes, English National Opera, London Coliseum
English National Opera’s “ownership” of Britten’s Peter Grimes was more than a little advanced by the arrival of David Alden’s thrilling staging in 2009 – and seeing it again now only confirms what I thought and felt…
The Magic Flute, English National Opera, London Coliseum (Review)
Out of the mouths of babes… the wise child that is Simon McBurney takes his cue from the “three young boys steeped in ancient learning” – a description he takes literally by transforming them into little old…
The Rape of Lucretia, Glyndebourne Touring Opera (Review)
Lucretia is quite literally pulled from the earth like a living artefact – and to the earth she will return. But when we arrive at the contentious final moments of Britten’s opera The Rape of Lucretia and…
Les Vepres Siciliennes, Royal Opera House (Review)
It started so thrillingly, director Stefan Herheim pulling off a theatrical coup which simultaneously fleshed out the opera’s back story whilst casting us body and soul into the gloriously opulent world of French opera-ballet. But as Verdi’s…
Fidelio, English National Opera (Review)
The first words we hear don’t belong to Fidelio at all, the first music does, but not at all where you expect to find it. If you’ve read your programme (and who does before the show begins?)…
Elektra, Royal Opera House (Review)
Applause for the conductor – even if it is Andris Nelsons – is just about the last thing we need to hear when Richard Strauss is about to fling down the brutal chords which spell out the…
“Billy Budd”, Glyndebourne Festival Opera (Review)
“This is not his trial, it is mine”, says Captain Fairfax Vere as he sees the inevitability of Billy Budd’s condemnation. “My heart’s broken, my life’s broken”, he concludes, and by having him bear witness to Billy’s…
Prom 20: Wagner “Götterdämmerung”, Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim, Royal Albert Hall (Review)
And so Wotan’s ravens flew home and at the twilight’s last gleaming the immortals were consumed by fire and water. All was finally and irrevocably redeemed by the power of love and the most beautiful of all…