| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 8-Feb-2013 Civic Opera House | Die Meistersinger fills the stage at Chicago's Lyric Opera |
 On Friday, a new co-production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg opened at the Lyric. The only comedy among Wagner’s mature music dramas, its sound is very much like that of the better-known tragedies – brassy, overfull, with a core of strings teetering at vibrato’s edge. But its style is heterogeneous where the tragedies are homogeneous, shifting rapidly through a Wagner-index of tropes and melodic figures.Read full review... | |
| 27-Oct-2012 Lincoln Center: Metropolitan Opera House | The Met's Otello in the cinema |
 The devil, they say, has all the best lines. In yesterday's performance of Verdi's Otello at the Met, the villain was simply sensational. Falk Struckmann's delivery of Jago's Credo in un Dio crudel (“I believe in a cruel God”) was a masterpiece of nihilism, combining power and richness of voice with a tone of pure, matter of fact evil. Throughout the opera, Struckmann avoided overacting: he simply let Boito's and Shakespeare's words do the talking, giving them weight and character through his singing voice.
Read full review... | |
| 31-Mar-2012 Theater an der Wien | Passion week begins in Vienna with Beethoven's Christus am Ölberge |
 This opening concert to Vienna OsterKlang festival was a reproduction of sorts: on 5th April 1803 a slate of Beethoven works including the first and second symphonies, the third piano concerto and the oratorio Christus am Ölberge was performed in this very theatre. All except for the first symphony were premières, though it is astonishing to think that Beethoven’s original plans for the event were even more ambitious (it is not known what was excluded, but he was forced to cut the programme short).Read full review... | |
| 30-Dec-2010 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | Bychkov and Botha do Tannhäuser |
 My last opera of the year was also my first Wagner: a new Covent Garden production of Tannhäuser, directed by Tim Albery and conducted by Semyon Bychkov.
First things first: Bychkov was magnificent. His phrasing wowed me time after time, the dynamics and matching of the music to the action were impeccable, and some glorious textures came from the orchestra in passages of all sorts, particuarly in Wagner's trademark brass writing. In just under four hours of music, there was hardly a foot wrong and never a dull moment.
Read full review... | |
