There are times when the continuing obsession in musical circles for uncovering composers’ first thoughts concerning their works yields diminishing returns, as often, a creator will refine and improve. First is rarely best. That general […]
Paul Curran’s production of Johann Strauss’s operetta Die Fledermaus (1874) – composed in the heyday of Habsburg Vienna – brings the action forwards to the 1920s or early ’30s, bearing with it a great deal […]
In essence, the story of the ‘fallen woman’ of Alexandre Dumas’s play (the literary source for Verdi’s opera) is simply a modern, secularised version of the age-old Christian trope of the wayward, sinful woman who […]
The final program in this Met Orchestra season opened with Antrópolis by Gabriel Ortiz, the current holder of the Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall. A ten-minute work inspired by the legendary dance halls and nightclubs […]
The evening began with an engrossing account of Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in G-minor, powerful on a modern piano, especially as interpreted by Hewitt on her brilliantly toned, four-pedal Fazioli. She played throughout with crystalline articulation and […]
Like its operatic sibling The Marriage of Figaro, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville is so perfectly formed a comedy that it almost directs itself and a good performance is virtually guaranteed. But such is its […]
The Philharmonic wound up this season’s ‘The Art of the Score’ series performing alongside an HD presentation of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, the second installment in the original Star Wars trilogy. Set three […]
The evening got underway with some bright, consummately French dances by Lully. All were presented with perfection, with some wonderfully delicate sounds from the 20-piece OSL, a modern instrument group playing with an elegance and […]
Local, metropolitan perceptions of Madama Butterfly have in recent years been monopolized by two competing realisations. Anthony Minghella’s only opera production, the iconic Coliseum show first staged in 2005 and shared with New York, is […]
On the occasion of this performance of The Flying Dutchman, leaden skies, chilly winds, and rather heavy rain beyond the half-open canopied auditorium of Holland Park seemed appropriately closer to the North Sea than a summer’s […]
