| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 8-Mar-2013 Hackney Empire | James Conway's updated Simon Boccanegra with ETO at Hackney Empire |
 English Touring Opera’s Verdi title for their Spring season in this composer’s (and Wagner’s) anniversary year is one of no small ambition. Premièred to only modest success in Venice in 1857, it would take Verdi another 20 or so years to return to Simon Boccanegra to try to fix the old “wobbly table” (as he and his librettist, Boito, later dubbed the 1857 version). Launched in a thoroughly revised version at La Scala, Milan in 1881, the work remained relatively unpopular with audiences for many years.Read full review... | |
| 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.
Read full review... | |
| 18-Oct-2010 The London Coliseum | La Bohème: near-perfection at the English National Opera |
 Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica's libretto for La Bohème has to rank as one of the greatest libretti in opera. It's fast-paced, taut and witty throughout, expansively romantic at times. Most importantly, the wonder of La Bohème is the way it paints human relationships with the pin-point accuracy of a Dutch master or a Victorian miniaturist. In the first and fourth acts, the friendship between four penniless artists overflows with the joy they find in each other and the dreadfulness of being cold and hungry.Read full review... | |
