| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 21-Nov-2012 The London Coliseum | Danger, sleaze, passion: Carmen re-imagined at ENO |
 Alastair Muir-sm.jpg) Carmen has always been in my head as a “pretty” opera: lovely tunes, colourful setting, exotically alluring gypsy brushing up against hunky bullfighter and handsome soldier - not exactly French Grand Opera, perhaps, but a far cry from gritty verismo. Calixto Bieito changed all that last night, with a production for ENO that strips the story down to its bare essentials, and left me thrilled beyond measure.
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| 12-Oct-2012 Barbican Centre: Hall | Haydn, Hummel and Ravel performed with confidence by the BBC Symphony Orchestra |
 Josep Pons strode purposefully onto the Barbican stage to conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Haydn’s “Clock” Symphony. The first movement opened by way of an Adagio laden with a suitable sense of portent, the layers of writing for the strings being clearly articulated to bring this out.Read full review... | |
| 16-Feb-2012 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | Schrott thrills in a mixed Don Giovanni |
 It's the most spectacular entrance in opera: the giant stone statue bursts in to join Don Giovanni at the dinner table; a pair of sweeping downward octave swoops in D minor fills the audience (and the hapless Leporello) with terror at the rake's imminent descent into hell.
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