| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 21-Dec-2012 La Scala | A dream cast united in La Scala's Lohengrin |
 The first opera of the season at La Scala is an event of huge cultural significance in Italy, so it raised some hackles when, for Giuseppe Verdi’s centenary year, the management passed over Verdi in favour of Wagner’s Lohengrin. But even Italians disappointed by the insult to their culture found it impossible to quarrel with the quality of the singing talent on show.Read full review... | |
| 1-Sep-2012 Großes Festspielhaus | Salzburg's first spiritual festival closes with Verdi's Requiem |
 Faith and glamour have bookended this year’s Salzburg Festival, a move met with incredulity in certain quarters and yet one not entirely alien to Austrian customs, if one looks to the 20 or so most glittering events of the Viennese ball season, which is promptly curtailed by Ash Wednesday (still observed by much of the population here with high Catholic asceticism).Read full review... | |
| 12-Jul-2012 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | Shakespeare Sung: Otello at Covent Garden |
 KENTON.jpg) Giuseppe Verdi and Arrigo Boito's Otello is renowned as one of the few truly successful Shakespearean operas, and while it's mostly a masterpiece on its own terms rather than Shakespeare's – countless scenes and characters are cut, and the very Verdian drinking song goes on far longer than you'd probably expect – there remains a hint of the brilliance of characterisation with which Shakespeare's play is filled. It is a true operatic tragedy, and Otello's decline is devastating in its effect.
Read full review... | |
