Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Rattle, Royal Festival Hall (Review)
Period instruments demand absolute honesty from their players. Their sound is their personality – candid, quirky, eccentrically beautiful – but their soul is revealed in the spirit of the playing where beauty is not skin deep and…
Mozart “Le nozze di Figaro”, Glyndebourne Festival Opera
It’s the age of long hair and raging hormones, wide lapels and wider collars, the age of new found “permissiveness” where the world and his dog are gagging for some extra-curricular congress and the great and good…
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Elder, Royal Festival Hall
Such is Berlioz’ persuasive theatricality that even when he is rearranging Shakespeare one is inclined to ask not what the Bard is doing for him but rather what he is doing for the Bard. His unprecedented Symphonie…
OAE, Podger, Queen Elizabeth Hall
The OAE billed this one 1700s London & the Fab Four which I guess left it to us, the audience, to decide who might be the Lennon and McCartney of the evening. JC Bach and Carl Friedrich…
Handel “Rinaldo”, Glyndebourne Festival Opera
It’s the second school “outing” of the season. First Christopher Alden took Britten back to visit his past in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at ENO and now Robert Carsen is playing schoolboy heroics and fantasy football with…
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Zinman, Queen Elizabeth Hall
Some collaborations are just meant to be. Bringing David Zinman and the OAE together made for the best kind of mutuality: Zinman’s acute ear and cleanness of execution; the orchestra’s arresting character. In short, the pristine Zinman…