| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 14-Feb-2013 Staatsoper | Nostalgia for the Italian Fifties: The Vienna Staatsoper's La Cenerentola |
 What has made Rossini and his librettist Jacopo Ferretti’s take on Cinderella survive on the opera stage for almost 200 years now is not only the universal archetype of the downtrodden girl who is redeemed by Prince Charming, nor its enchanting music: the absence of fairy-tale symbols like the pumpkin carriage and the glass shoe (barefoot ladies would have been too outrageous a sight on an Italian stage of the time) has perhaps also helped to make it timeless, practical to stage, and largely director-proof.
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| 21-Oct-2012 Opéra Bastille | An operatic high-note: Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment comes home to Paris |
 From time to time, audiences are presented with what I consider to be a rare event, a “dream” performer: one so convincing in his or her role that they become an ideal, establishing a standard to which all following interpretations will inevitably be compared – for example, Jacqueline du Pré’s interpretation of Elgar’s Cello Concerto has become a timeless benchmark.
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| 7-Jun-2012 National Theatre | La Cenerentola at the Bavarian State Opera |
 Shortly after Rossini's success with The Barber of Seville came La Cenerentola, a reworking of the Cinderella fairy tale, but with a little less magic, and a lot more worldly comedy. It was an instant success and further established the 25-year-old Rossini as one of the greatest Italian opera composers of his day. Today it is one of Rossini's most performed operas, and has retained the freshness and joie de vivre which it doubtless had at its 1817 première.
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| 18-Nov-2010 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur at the Royal Opera |
ASHMORE.jpg) Giacomo Puccini comprehensively eclipsed the other Italian composers of his era. Three of them remain in the repertoire as one hit wonders: Mascagni, Leoncavallo and Francesco Cilea, whose four act Adriana Lecouvreur opened at Covent Garden last night. It's the story of a love triangle which ends in murder, set backstage at the Comédie Française in the 18th century and based on a true story (or at least, on a story that was widely believed at the time): the real Adrienne Lecouvreur died in 1730, probably poisoned by her rival, the Princesse de Bouillon.
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