| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 13-Nov-2012 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | Donizetti's elixir is still a winning formula at Covent Garden |
 ASHMORE-bt.jpg) Take one hapless but lovable hero, one capricious but ultimately vulnerable heroine, a doctor and an army officer straight out of commedia dell’arte, a couple of basso buffo patter songs, at least one memorable romantic ballad, and stir the lot into a good lashing of boisterous Italian music with a sprinkling of furtive tears. Donizetti’s formula for L’Elisir d’Amore may not have made all the girls fall at his feet, it did bring him money and enduring fame beyond even the wildest predictions that could have been made by the quack Dr. Dulcamara.
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| 22-Jul-2012 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 11: Les Troyens |
 David McVicar’s production of Berlioz’s opera Les Troyens at the Royal Opera House last month was notable for several reasons. Firstly, stellar vocal performances from world-class lead singers; secondly, brilliant acting; thirdly, ravishing music; and lastly, a memorable set – including a curious giant horse and human made out of what looked like scrap weapons and tools.Read full review... | |
| 25-Jun-2012 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | Berlioz's magnum opus Les Troyens at Covent Garden |
 It's one of the most famous, most studied, most archetypal passages in epic poetry: in Book I of Virgil's Aeneid, the Trojans, exhausted from their voyage and desolate at the loss of their city, gaze down on the city of Carthage as it rises from the African soil, its people scurrying like worker bees in their manifold tasks. It provided the high point in the Royal Opera's new staging of Berlioz's magnum opus Les Troyens last night: a brightly costumed chorus singing down from a terraced city carved into a red sandstone cliff, inspired by views of Morocco.
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| 30-Apr-2012 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | Bychkov conducts Calleja and Giannattasio in an immaculate Bohème |
 COOPER.jpg) After years of opera going, is it really still possible for me to be moved to tears by a tenor’s wail at the sight of a consumptive heroine dying tunefully in her bed at the end of the last act? I didn’t think so, but on the basis of last night’s Covent Garden performance of La Bohème, the answer would appear to be yes.
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