Neilsen’s Mother …
Carl Nielsen’s music to The Mother: A Play in a Prologue and Seven Scenes by Helge Rode was recorded in full for the first time here. Some excerpts have found their way in into record […]
ΚΡΙΤΙΚΕΣ
Beautifully well-matched casting & superb singing brings alive the latest revival of David McVicar’s production of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro at Covent Garden
Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro – Andrey Zhilikhovsky, Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, Louise Alder, Alex Esposito – Royal Opera House (Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic) Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro; Alex Esposito, Louise Alder, Andrey Zilikhovsky, Masabane Cecilia […]
Vasily Petrenko and the RPO in Hisaishi & Scriabin
A curious programme with which to bring down the curtain on a successful season. Vasily Petrenko began with one of his well-intended homilies, promising us an evening of extremes but trailing off into unintelligibility when […]
Mining the contemporary: two American opera releases by Ricky Ian Gordon & Tobias Picker take inspiration from the AIDS crisis & an historical figure of trans identity
Tobias Picker: Lili Elbe – Lucia Lucas – Theater St. Gallen 2023 Ever since John Adams and Alice Goodman focused on Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to China, contemporary opera (and contemporary American opera in particular) […]
Bach Goldberg Variations (as you’ve never heard them)
There are kazilliions of Goldbergs out there. Here’s one with a difference: an arrangement by Tomáš Ille (born 1971) for French horn (Radek Baborák), violin (Dalibor Karvay), marimba (Andrei Pushkarev) and bass clarinet (Petr Velášek). […]
Early Richard Strauss: Beecham’s Macbeth (and more!)
Macbeth, Op. 23 (1886-8) Richard Strauss’ first tone-poem, is not heard much. Norman del Mar devoted much space to it in his fine Strauss books, though, and that piqued my interest many, many years ago […]
John Wilson at The Grange Festival 2026: Celebrating Sinatra
Audience members had come from far and wide, making a kind of pilgrimage to this unlikely, austerely magical venue set in the Hampshire countryside. In recent years John Wilson and his hand-picked, high-octane orchestra have […]
A 4,000-year-old lullaby inspires Freya Waley Cohen’s new piece for sister Tamsin as part of Lullabies programme with Cordelia Williams
Lullaby (noun) – A song sung to children to soothe them to rest. Also, any song which soothes to rest. (Oxford English Dictionary online) Inevitably the idea of a lullaby is immediately associated with children but […]
In his passion for the music of Richard Wagner, Tony Cooper finds himself back in Germany attending Stefan Herheim’s widely acclaimed Ring cycle at Deutsche Oper Berlin.
Wagner: Das Rheingold – Deutsche Oper Berlin (Photo: Bernd Uhlig) Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen; director: Stefan Herheim, conductor: Sir Donald Runnicles; Deutsche Oper BerlinReviewed by Tony Cooper (4 June 2026) Auf wiedersehen! Following this […]
125 years young: the Wigmore Hall celebrates, Lise Davidsen headlines
Happy “birth”- day to Wigmore Hall (inasmuch as bricks and mortar are birthed). On the hall’s actual 125th anniversary, it was Lise Davidsen and the equally astonishing collaborative pianist James Baillieu who did the honours: […]
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