Float on, white winged Butterfly Giacomo Puccini certainly knew how to stir a controversy, if only a century after his death. Madama Butterfly, first performed in 1904, sits alongside Turandot as most likely to cause complaint on its performance. Butterfly can be a victim of its own success. It’s legion of poor quality copycats, the […]
Jenůfa – English National Opera
Psychological Turmoil with a Powerful Ending David Alden’s production of Jenůfa, first shown at ENO in 2006 and revived in 2016 takes the work from its original village setting to a remote industrial estate at some point in the twentieth century, with Števa (John Findon) an Elvis like character complete with bleached blond hair, leather-jacket […]
Giant – Royal Opera House review
Fee Fi Fo Fum I smell the story of an Irishman Following it’s world Premiere at the Aldeburgh Festival last year, Sarah Angliss’s Giant has made its way to the Lindbury theatre. Giant is based on the true story of 18th century “Irish Giant” Charles Byrne. Byrne was an enormously tall man who made his […]
The Flying Dutchman – Royal Opera House
This Dutchman Flies High It took me until I was in my 30s to brave a Wagner opera. Not The Flying Dutchman but Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg. Why? well, partly because many Wagner operas are long – but mostly because I’d been advised that I wouldn’t like them. The advice I was given is a […]
The Magic Flute ENO
A magic Magic Flute Mozart’s Magic Flute should need no introduction. One of the most performed pieces of musical theatre, a piece so sacrosanct that fascist governments were scared to tamper with it. In The Queen Of the Night’s Der Hölle Rache it has the defining coloratura aria, written to show off Mozart’s sister-in-law’s high […]
A Star Next to the Moon – Review
The Ossified Memories of what might have been A Star Next to the Moon is the product of nearly two decades of labour by composer Stephen McNeff. The Guildhall School of Music and Drama are continuing their run of interesting pieces by giving it its world premiere as part of the spring season. A Star […]
The Barber of Seville at the English National Opera
Miller’s Barber Lights up the ENO I first became aware of Jonathan Miller’s work as an opera director in 1982 when I was a music student. The reverberations from his ‘Mafia’ production of Rigoletto for the ENO set in the 1950s in New York’s Little Italy, reached far and wide. Miller was lauded for revitalising […]
Tosca at The Royal Opera House
A Rolls-Royce of a Production Director Jonathan Kent’s take on Puccini’s Tosca is returning to Covent Garden for its 14th revival. That sounds impressive until you realise that Margarethe Wallmann’s 1959 production at the Wiener Staatsoper has just received its 647th performance! I’ve seen Kent’s Tosca a few times now and it’s always a pleasure […]
Siegfried – Regents Opera
He’s not the saviour of Valhalla, He’s a very naughty boy The Regents Opera ring cycle is a series I’ve been following with pleasure since it stormed into London with an unforgettable with Das Rheingold in 2022. Artistic director and conductor Ben Woodward has re-arranged the scoring of Wagner’s monumental series for a far more […]
The Handmaid’s Tale – ENO
Stuck under each other’s heels Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian vision of a religious extremist United States, transformed into the repressive republic of Gilead. Women who have committed such crimes as “having an abortion after gang rape” and “marrying a divorcee” are forced into the role of Handmaid. Handmaids are […]