| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 20-Feb-2013 Theater an der Wien | Sex, wine and bel canto bliss: Le Comte Ory at the Theater an der Wien |
 When Jean-Christophe Spinosi stepped onto the podium to conduct Le Comte Ory that night, he didn’t wait for his applause to cease, but instantly cued a hearty forte from the Ensemble Matheus, and consequently a few incredulous looks from the audience.Read full review... | |
| 25-Aug-2012 Haus für Mozart | Giulio Cesare in Salzburg |
 Giulio Cesare, an opera populated with manipulative characters that only interact with each other when shared interests are at stake, is a receptive vessel for a scornful indictment of imperialism and the dubious alliances it forges. With recourse to the obvious present-day target it is perhaps also a concept already fully mined by Peter Sellars, who in the late 1980s presented Caesar as a high-handed U.S. president out to further American interests in the Middle East, and revisited themes of Western moral hypocrisy in his 1996 Glyndebourne staging of Theodora.Read full review... | |
| 25-Jun-2011 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | Madama Butterfly |
 HOBAN-ROH-sq.jpg) What makes this otherwise routine revival of Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser’s eight year old production an absolute must-see is the sensational Royal Opera House debut of Kristine Opolais in the title role. She is a statuesque Latvian blonde, barely transformed by her dark wig and geisha makeup. Yet she convinces utterly as the fifteen year old Japanese bride bought by an American naval officer then cruelly abandoned.
Read full review... | |
| 18-Jan-2011 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | Aleksandra Kurzak shines as Rossini's Rosina |
HOBAN.jpg) Rossini's The Barber of Seville has been his most enduringly well-loved opera. It's in the top ten of operas performed worldwide today, and it has stayed at the top of the most-played lists even when many of his other works were little played. This isn't an accident: it's an easy-going romantic comedy which doesn't demand much and leaves you feeling good and humming the tunes - most particularly, Figaro's bombastic, fast-talking Largo al factotum, which has to be one of the greatest theatrical entrances ever.
Read full review... | |
