| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 17-Apr-2013 Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts | David Alden's edgy Lucia di Lammermoor triumphs in Toronto |
 Everything about the opening scene of this production set me on edge: centre-stage a hybrid bed on wheels, part crib part hospital, and propped up on it, peering through the bars, a young female, presumably Lucia. The set is a high-walled room, dingy white, plaster stained, paper peeling, with a short door and elongated windows suggesting a surreal Alice-in-Wonderland distortion.Read full review... | |
| 8-Dec-2012 Lincoln Center: Metropolitan Opera House | Álvarez and Hvorostovsky outstanding in the Met's Un ballo in maschera |
 Verdi experts regularly name Un ballo in maschera to be one of his finest works. In spite of this, it’s never reached the heights of popularity of La Traviata or Rigoletto, so a new production by an acclaimed director for a major opera house is a notable event. We watched David Alden’s New York Ballo from the comfort of a London cinema under the Met’s Live in HD series.
Read full review... | |
| 23-Jun-2012 The London Coliseum | Dark deeds on the high seas: Billy Budd at ENO |
 For a taut drama about the relationships between men thrown together in an enclosed space, it's hard to imagine a better setting than the claustrophobic environment of a warship in Nelson's navy. Sailors worked in atrocious conditions for little pay in a life that alternated between the excitement and mortal danger of battle and long periods of intense boredom, with an ensuing myriad of petty squabbles and hatreds. Herman Melville's unfinished novella Billy Budd overlays this with a tale of crime and judgement.
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| 10-Nov-2011 Kennedy Center: Opera House | Lucia in Washington: The House Always Wins |
 On Thursday night the DC opera fans gathered at the Washington National Opera for the opening night of David Alden’s production of Donizetti’s timeless tale of love and horror, Lucia di Lammermoor. It soon became obvious that the production presented to us was not the most conservative one. Immersed in pitch black darkness with but a thin ray of light across the wall, the stage was anything but easy to look at. Alden’s production transported us into the house of eternal twilight – the house of the Ashtons.Read full review... | |
