Reviews
Inside Reviews
Candide, English National Opera, London
The Rake's Progress, Garsington Opera, Oxford
Rusalka, Grange Park Opera, Hampshire
Sunday, 29 June 2008
Set in the dystopic, fantasy state of West-Failure, this rewrite of 'Candide' looks great but lacks satirical bite
LSO/Previn/Mutter: Barbican, London (Rated 5/ 5 )
Wednesday, 25 June 2008
Some concerts are just concerts, but some come heavily freighted with history, which needs to be known if their nature is properly to be savoured. And it was clearly the history of two performers that drew the crowd to the Barbican.
Preview: Halle Orchestra/Elder, St Paul's Cathedral, London
Monday, 23 June 2008
Is conducting an orchestra a physically tiring occupation? The conductor Mark Elder, 61, who was knighted in the 2008 Queen's birthday honours list and who is in charge of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, is to conduct a concert at St Paul's Cathedral, as part of the City of London Festival.
Album: Tchaikovsky, Symphony No 6/ Dumka – Philadelphia Orchestra/Eschenbach (Ondine)
Sunday, 22 June 2008
Music director since 2003, Christoph Eschenbach has galvanised the Philadephia Orchestra and transformed its style. The orchestra's sleek tone is still well-nourished but its phrasing is more muscular and less sentimental.
Albert Herring, Glyndebourne Festival, Glyndebourne (Rated 4/ 5 )
Friday, 20 June 2008
Intriguingly, there was to have been a sequel to Albert Herring. Britten was out of the picture by then, but his excellent librettist, Eric Crozier, had supposedly made a start on it before he died. Had he taken his lead from the original source, a short story by Guy de Maupassant? Were things to end badly for Albert? Or, having asserted his independence, might Albert have gone on to become Mayor?
Belcea Quartet, Wigmore Hall, London (Rated 3/ 5 )
Thursday, 19 June 2008
Two enigmatic string quartets: Schubert's A minor "Rosamunde" (1824), with its ambiguous, ever-shifting mood changes between minor and major, plaintive and insouciant; and Beethoven's vast, late C sharp minor (1825-6), with its continuous unfolding of no less than seven oddly assorted movements, adding up to – what exactly?
You write the reviews: Proms at St Jude's, St Jude's, London (Rated 4/ 5 )
Thursday, 19 June 2008
Loose morals, bullfighting, sorcery, vengeance and downright evil hit Hampstead Garden Suburbs on the second evening of the St Jude's Proms. Gail Pearson (soprano), Victoria Simmonds (mezzo-soprano), Rhys Meirion (tenor) and David Kempster (baritone) sped us through the full spectrum: tender romantic love ("Lippen Schweigen" from Lehar's The Merry Widow); seduction (Carmen's "Seguidilla"); vile malevolence ("Credo in un Dio Crudel" from Verdi's Otello) and pure frothy exuberance (Offenbach's "Celebrons Paris!" from La Vie Parisienne).
Ariadne Auf Naxos, Royal Opera House, London (Rated 3/ 5 )
Wednesday, 18 June 2008
It's still one of the most expensive scenic tricks the Royal Opera wheels out. In the opening moments of Christof Loy's staging of Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, designer Herbert Murauer spirits us to the lobby of some glamorous art deco apartment building, but instead of taking the elevator to the lavish penthouse where our rich patron awaits, we all descend – or rather the entire set ascends – to reveal the dingy "backstage" below stairs.
Powder her Face, Royal Opera House: Linbury Studio Theatre, London (Rated 3/ 5 )
Friday, 13 June 2008
Powder Her Face has the dubious distinction of being the piece that brought fellatio to the operatic stage. The Duchess of Argyll's scandalous extra-marital tryst with "the headless man" – headless because the incriminating photograph was focused elsewhere – has added to the repertoire an aria that will never be lost in translation. It is the climax, so to speak, of a first act that long outstays its welcome and which makes one wonder what possible dramatic interest there can be in the saga of an idle, rich aristocrat growing old disgracefully.
Philharmonia/Dudamel, Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury (Rated 4/ 5 )
Monday, 9 June 2008
Everybody who saw the young Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel lead the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra in the 2007 Proms will know that he is not so much a star in the making as the fully formed article. In his mid-twenties, next year he takes over as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Putting him with the equally hot Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski made for the classical dream ticket of 2008.
Ravi Shankar, Barbican Hall, London
Sunday, 8 June 2008
Hushed awe as the master bows out on a high note
L'incoronazione di Dario, Garsington Opera, Oxford (Rated 3/ 5 )
Friday, 6 June 2008
As Garsington Opera begins its search for a new home, another quest begins: an awfully big Vivaldi adventure. Why are the Red Priest's stage works so neglected?
You write the reviews: Cosi Fan Tutte, Castleward Opera, Strangford lough, County Down (Rated 4/ 5 )
Friday, 6 June 2008
This is Tom Hawkes's eighth production of this opera in almost 40 years. He tells us that he has returned to it because he still finds something new to say, and Mozart never bores him. He goes on to prove his point by factoring in some deft, unexpected touches in his direction, right up to the last bars of the score.
Preview: Don Carlos, Royal Opera House, London
Thursday, 5 June 2008
The stand-in takes over on centre stage
Il Trovatore, Holland Park, London (Rated 2/ 5 )
Thursday, 5 June 2008
It was once famously said that Verdi's Il trovatore required the four best singers in the world. Unfortunately, they were unable to make it to west London this summer, and the four who did must have wondered if being in a dismal production on a very wet day was quite what they had bargained for. In every sense, it was the dampest start to another ambitious season for Opera Holland Park.
You write the reviews: Jack Kerouac and Steve Allen, Poetry for the Beat Generation, Zonophone (Rated 4/ 5 )
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
On this rerelease of his debut spoken-world album from 1959, Jack Kerouac, one of the lead voices of the Beat generation of writers in the 1950s and 1960s, reads selections of his own work over the sympathetic accompaniment of the pianist Steve Allen.It features poems collected in Mexico City Blues, Old Angel Midnight, Heaven & Other Poems and a number of unpublished works, in which the poet tells stories through what he termed "bop prosody".
Britten Sinfonia/Masson/Macgregor/Youssef, Bath Abbey, Bath (Rated 4/ 5 )
Monday, 2 June 2008
Joanna MacGregor knows how to party, and I'm not just talking about the opening Party in the City for the 60th birthday of the Bath International Music Festival. The whole feel of this year's festival radiates bubbly enjoyment. It is, of course, a celebration of MacGregor's eclectic enthusiasms, with bold mixtures of artists drawn from the widest musical spectrum. Oddly, they sit perfectly in this historic city.
Preview: L'iIoronazione di Dario, Garsington Manor, Oxford
Monday, 2 June 2008
A royal opera to Garsington manor is born
Aida, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff (Rated 4/ 5 )
Friday, 30 May 2008
Like its Don Carlos three years ago, Welsh National Opera's new Aida is its first attempt on the big Millennium Centre stage at a work that was always straitjacketed by the New Theatre. But it has the same problem of scale, since it has to tour. So the director John Caird adopts a similar tactic of confining the action, this time within an arena-like set designed by Yannis Thavoris, which limits the triumph scene but succeeds in stacking the chorus vertically.
LSO/Noseda, Barbican, London (Rated 4/ 5 )
Monday, 26 May 2008
This was Gianandrea Noseda's debut with the LSO. Let's just say that his presence was felt. So much so that it was his and not his soloist Janine Jansen's personality that was initially stamped on Beethoven's Violin Concerto.
Der Rosenkavalier, Coliseum, London (Rated 4/ 5 )
Monday, 26 May 2008
In the final scene of Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, just as the Marschallin is about to leave her lover, Octavian, to the younger woman, she says to Sophie: "No need to talk so much. You're pretty, that's enough." But is it? For those who hope that Octavian will come to his senses and leave the air-headed ingnue before it's too late, David McVicar's production plants some hopeful clues. Indeed, Octavian only just stops short of following the Marschallin out of that final scene, almost sparing us that saccharin duet between the young lovers. I reckon McVicar gives them about a month together.
BBC SO/Davis, Barbican, London (Rated 2/ 5 )
Monday, 26 May 2008
The world premiere of Tsunami by Dominic Muldowney (the second recipient of the Elgar Bursary for mature composers) registered barely a ripple. Here was a highly experienced theatre composer working with a significant poet, James Fenton, and a charismatic actor-singer, Philip Quast. But Tsunami, played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Colin Davis, patronised the popular styles to which it alluded.
L'incoronazione di Poppea, Glyndebourne
Roméo et Juliette, Theatre Royal, Nottingham
Labyrinto, St John's Smith Square, London
Sunday, 25 May 2008
Don't blame the singers – they, and the orchestra, are ravishing; it's the staging that kills this Monteverdi opera
Album: Mozart, Piano Concertos No 12 and No 24 – Pollini/Vienna Philharmonic (Deutsche Grammophon)
Sunday, 25 May 2008
Maurizio Pollini's Mozart Concerto series with the Vienna Philharmonic continues with a flawless and buoyant performance of the A major and C minor concertos.
Album: Bach, Frühwerke – Andreas Staier (Harmonia Mundi)
Sunday, 25 May 2008
Variously north German, Italian and French in style, the works in Andreas Staier's captivating recital reveal the developing musical personality of the young Bach.
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