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…
Benjamin/Crimp “Written On Skin”, Royal Opera House (Review)
George Benjamin and Martin Crimp’s Written On Skin arrives at the Royal House for its UK premiere trailing extraordinary plaudits from all who’ve seen it. One can understand why. Music theatre is such a delicate, precarious, business…
Meyerbeer “Robert Le Diable”, Royal Opera House (Review)
In the fictional museum of operatic history the Meyerbeer exhibit invites curiosity more than it commands respect. One sees his place in the grand – very grand – scheme of things, one can appreciate his influence, acknowledge…
Verdi “Rigoletto”, Royal Opera House
Distressed and decaying amidst crumbling masonry Michael Vale’s brutalist set tilts and turns towards catastrophe like some sort of post-modernist installation. The Court of Mantua is a world off its axis in David McVicar’s much-revived staging of…
Mozart “Don Giovanni”, Royal Opera House
There is hell-fire enough at the close of Francesca Zambello’s 2002 staging of Don Giovanni to consume not just the Don but the entire production. Not such a bad idea, I found myself thinking, as the Commendatore’s…
Wagner “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg”, Royal Opera House
The years have undoubtedly taken their toll and what seemed so fresh and new in 1993 – the pristine abstractions of Richard Hudson’s design, the washes of orange and gold light, the assertively jolly Brueghelesque costumes –…
Wagner “Die Fliegender Holländer”, Royal Opera House
We actually don’t need the billowing front cloth, the torrential rain, or strafing searchlights – from the moment Wagner lays bare those sizzling open fifths in the strings he does the tempest-tossed thing for us. Indeed that…
Gounod “Faust”, Royal Opera House
“This is my domain”, says Méphistophéles, and suddenly we his audience are behind the footlights looking into an auditorium just like ours. It isn’t a particular original idea casting the devil as master of ceremonies and purveyor…
Puccini “Il Trittico”, Royal Opera House
The accepted wisdom on Puccini’s trio of one-acters, Il Trittico, is that Gianni Schicchi is the masterpiece, Suor Angelica of very particular and questionable taste, with Il Tabarro, all shadow and melodrama, bringing up the rear. But…
Puccini “Tosca”, Royal Opera House
Bring together three of the most intuitive talents (and biggest stars) on the planet, meld them under the baton of Antonio Pappano whose command of every caress, swoon, and dramatic impulse of Puccini’s Tosca is not learned…