Many Russians will think highly of Valery Gergiev’s action in skipping out in mid-opera to conduct a Putin aria halfway across Moscow. Russian audiences are used to being kept waiting, and worse things happened under […]
Days after Sir John Eliot Gardiner flew in with his new team, the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir performed an identical programme at the Elbphilharmonie, conducted by Christophe Rousset (pictured). The performance was totally […]
The over-booked Finn had a hard time at his Vienna Philharmonic debut this weekend with Mahler’s sixth Symphony. The experienced critic for Der Standard, Stefan Ender, found the performance ‘incredibly loud’, resulting in ‘a levelling […]
Birmingham Royal Ballet has just announced the death of its dedicated chief executive Caroline Miller. It is with great sadness that Birmingham Royal Ballet today announces that CEO Caroline Miller passed away in the early […]
Back in June 2024 Vache Baroque staged six multi-sensory concert experiences of Handel’s L’Allegro Part I (setting a text based on Milton) in collaboration with BitterSuite (a group that creates music experiences that take inspiration […]
Sinfonia Smith Square Sinfonia Smith Square (formed from the merger of Southbank Sinfonia and St John’s Smith Square) has been awarded £452,035 grant by The National Lottery Heritage Fund for upgrades to Smith Square Hall. The […]
The legendary tabla player, composer, actor and producer Zakir Hussain died today in a US hospital at the age of 73. A government minister declared him ‘irreplaceable’. Zakir Hussain shot to fame in the 1970s, […]
The emeritus music director of the Chicago Symphony seems charmingly vague about his successor in an interview with Dennis Polkow. Or maybe he’s just kidding, with a touch of malice. Excerpt: “I didn’t want to […]
An ecstatic reception of Petrenko’s Mahler Ninth with the Israel Philharmonic has been accompanied by thoughtful reviews. Petrenkko himself wrote in a programme note that he did not accept the collective conducting wisdom that the […]
NB: I’m reposting this, as one of next week’s posts will be a full Trittico from Vienna …. Puccini Suor Angelica (sung in English, traans. Amanda Holden). Cast; Chorus and Orchestra of English National Opera […]