| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 16-May-2013 Staatsoper | Andrea Chénier at the Wiener Staatsoper |
 Love and death are the two basic ingredients of the standard opera plot, and the more tragedy involved from the first to the last, the more likely it is to spur composers to set it to magnificent music. Andrea Chénier is a textbook example of this although it is not anywhere near as popular as La traviata, Carmen or La bohème, and explicably so.Read full review... | |
| 21-Oct-2012 Opéra Bastille | An operatic high-note: Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment comes home to Paris |
 From time to time, audiences are presented with what I consider to be a rare event, a “dream” performer: one so convincing in his or her role that they become an ideal, establishing a standard to which all following interpretations will inevitably be compared – for example, Jacqueline du Pré’s interpretation of Elgar’s Cello Concerto has become a timeless benchmark.
Read full review... | |
| 21-Jul-2012 National Theatre | An excellent Tosca in Munich with Terfel, Naglestad and Giordano |
 In Tosca there's a real sense of Puccini being at home. Written shortly after La Bohème, when he was right at the height of his powers, Tosca is a story of love, jealousy and political turmoil, taking place in Rome, the same city in which it was premiered. These are events and characters which Puccini could identify with, and the locale was one he knew, not the alien distance of Paris, the Orient or the US, where some of his other best-known operas are set.Read full review... | |
| 14-Jun-2011 Opéra Bastille | Otello in Paris, a night for the singers |
 Otello, Verdi’s penultimate opera, is a tightly-wound setting of Shakespeare’s familiar tragedy. From the opening storm to the title character dying upon a kiss, it is more fragmentary and emotionally cool than his earlier work, an opera that tends to be more admired than loved. The demanding leading roles, choruses, and orchestral writing pose a formidable challenge for any opera house, and it is performed relatively infrequently. But the Opéra National de Paris’s current revival is a welcome opportunity to savor its musical riches, thanks to some first-class singing.
Read full review... | |
