Classical Source Reviews

John Savournin’s production of Lehár’s The Merry Widow (1905) – a score particularly known and loved for its evocation of bittersweet nostalgia and sentiment – moves the action to the notably unsentimental, ungentle context of […]

This was the last concert in the RPO’s ‘Lights in the Dark’ strand, here repurposed to encompass music by composers marginalised by gender expectations and/or issues of race and sexual preference. Some of the claims […]

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 […]