| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 11-May-2013 The London Coliseum | Bring your mental body armour: Wozzeck at ENO |
Military service brutalises. If you’re in any doubt about this, Berg’s short opera Wozzeck should dispel them, and particularly so in Carrie Cracknell’s new production for ENO. The fragmentary play on which Wozzeck is based, by Georg Büchner, originated in a true story of a soldier in the Napoleonic wars and was edited and published after the Franco-Prussian war; Berg wrote the opera in the aftermath of World War I; Cracknell moves it to the British military of today. It could be in any place at any time.
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| 13-Feb-2013 St David's Hall | The Philharmonia play Beethoven and Tchaikovsky with Guy and Gardner in Cardiff |
There are times when a concert, even those featuring famous and oft-heard works, can be utterly rejuvenating.
Tonight’s performance presented a pair of grand minor-key works by two emotional heavyweights of the 19th century.Read full review... | |
| 17-Jan-2013 Birmingham Symphony Hall | Springtime and the sea with Edward Gardner and the CBSO |
The sea has been the inspiration for many concert works; Debussy’s La mer springs to mind immediately as perhaps the most popular, but in England during the first half of the 20th century nautical themes sustained an important presence. Amongst Delius’ Sea Drift, Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony and Britten’s Four Sea Interludes sits Frank Bridge’s short and splendid suite The Sea.
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| 28-Nov-2012 Lincoln Center: Metropolitan Opera House | Erwin Schrott stars in the Metropolitan Opera's Don Giovanni |
Don Giovanni is perhaps the most difficult of the Mozart–Da Ponte opera trilogy to stage. Not only is there the problem of how exactly the Don is to be consumed in flames at the end of its three-hour span, or the issue of how to make the statue of the Commendatore come to life. There is also the question of how to square the deep sexual and class conflicts that are on display throughout the work with its constant humour. After all, Mozart designated this, his bleakest work, an opera buffa, or comic opera.
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