| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 24-Oct-2012 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | The cycle concludes: Götterdämmerung at the Royal Opera |
 Monumental in scale and scope, Götterdämmerung is a work to which it is hard to be indifferent. For many, the idea of an evening of fantasy opera lasting nearly seven hours is unimaginable, so uncongenial is the subject material and so great the attention span demanded. For Wagner fans - and Ring fans in particular - it's a riveting theatrical and musical experience, the zenith of opera as an art form. Last night at Covent Garden was my first live Götterdämmerung, spent in the company of around three thousand of those fans.
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| 25-May-2012 The London Coliseum | Caligula slain in the Coliseum: A triumph for ENO |
 Where could be more appropriate to see the story of Caligula, Rome’s most notorious emperor/self-proclaimed God, than in the Coliseum! Its purple SPQR livery made the opening to this performance all the more striking as Caligula, dishevelled, unhinged and not a little scary, crept on stage through the curtain in dead silence. So the decidedly menacing tone of the opera was set before the curtain had even been raised or a sound heard. When the curtain rises we see his sister collapse, dead, and he releases a primal scream to spark up the orchestra.
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| 11-Jan-2012 Birmingham Symphony Hall | Pappano's triumphant Royal Opera House Meistersinger in Birmingham |
 The classical world came off lightly in the recent New Year Honours list, with the Royal Opera House’s knighted Antonio Pappano the only winner. He has much to celebrate, more so after directing last night’s concert performance of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg with authoritative ease and good cheer, supported by a fine array of soloists.
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| 20-Sep-2011 Sydney Opera House: Opera Theatre | Verdi's early Shakespearian drama |
 As the curtain rises at the beginning of Act I, we are greeted with violent flashes of light, rocks strewn across the stage and the witches almost slithering among the rocks, as they make their prophecies to Macbeth that he will eventually become King, prompting him and Lady Macbeth in their murderous, Machiavellian pursuit of power.Read full review... | |
