| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 30-Mar-2013 Staatsoper | New Britten production in Hamburg: Gloriana as a village pageant |
 British director Richard Jones is well known for his bold, modern and often controversial takes on operatic repertoire. So I was very curious to see what surprising ideas he would come up with in directing Britten’s rarely performed opera Gloriana, originally composed in honour of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. 60 years on, this new production opened on 24 March at the Hamburg State Opera, and will travel to the Royal Opera House in June.
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| 10-Aug-2012 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 37: Elgar's The Apostles with The Hallé |
 If you’ve never been to a grand-scale choral work at the Royal Albert Hall, I’d urge you to do so at the earliest opportunity. This wasn’t my first visit to the Proms, and I’ve experienced oratorios, requiems and passions galore in other places, but to hear hundreds of accomplished singers filling this vast circular space was new territory for me. The hall seemed made for the occasion.
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| 16-Jun-2012 Leeds Town Hall | Opera North: Die Walküre |
 Opera North’s concert staging of Wagner’s Ring Cycle continued last night with Die Walküre, the “first night” proper of the cycle after the “preliminary evening” of Das Rheingold. Following the godly power struggles that play out in Das Rheingold, there is a change of emphasis in Die Walküre, which takes us into an intense family drama – of the fourteen singers, one is Wotan himself, then there are his ten daughters, his son and his wife: only Hunding, Sieglinde’s wronged husband, is outside the clan.
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| 6-Jun-2012 National Theatre | Andreas Kriegenburg's Wozzeck: A true masterpiece |
 The plight of the introvert, stigmatised by society despite the many benefits of their contemplative natures and inner strength, is an important part of the contemporary Zeitgeist, but it is in fact nothing new. In the early to mid 20th century, fuelled by Freud and psychoanalysis, this concept was particularly strong, and fed into the works of artists of many different stripes, producing some of the greatest works of 20th-century opera.Read full review... | |
