Otello, English National Opera, London Coliseum
It is 30 years ago – but feels like another life – that David Alden first exploded on to English National Opera’s Coliseum stage with his forever notorious cut-price staging of Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa. None of us there…
Elgar “The Dream of Gerontius”, Davis, Barbican
Some performances evolve so naturally, so inevitably, that they feel – bespoke. Andrew Davis has a long history with both the BBC Symphony Orchestra (who gave him his first big break) and Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius…
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…
Briefly… Peter Grimes, London Philharmonic, Jurowski, Royal Festival Hall (Review)
I think we can now say with absolute certainty that Stuart Skelton is the pre-eminent Peter Grimes of the present time. Just as Peter Pears originated the role for a whole generation and Jon Vickers redefined it…
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?)…
Prom 55: Britten “Peter Grimes”, English National Opera, Edward Gardner – Review ****
You can take the opera out of the opera house but you can’t take the opera house out of the opera – not when the spirit of David Alden’s benchmark 2009 production of Britten’s Peter Grimes resides…
Wagner “The Flying Dutchman”, English National Opera
The front curtain at the London Coliseum is a rare sight these days and suggested that we might for once be about to experience Wagner’s celebrated Overture without “illustration”. With Edward Gardner and the ENO Orchestra identifying…
Wagner “Parsifal”, English National Opera, London Coliseum
One of the great operatic images of the last two decades or so comes in the final act of Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s 1999 staging of Wagner’s last opera Parsifal. It is journey’s end for the fool made wise…