London Philharmonic Orchestra, Mattila, Hampson, Jurowski, Royal Festival Hall (Review)
A single bottom C sunk deeper than even the deepest underground trains running so audibly below the Royal Festival Hall was the auspicious start to the South Bank Centre’s much anticipated festival “The Rest is Noise”. Forget…
A Conversation With HOWARD GOODALL
Monday 11th February 2013, King’s Place In conversation with Howard Goodall about his new book and TV series Howard Goodall’s Story of Music. The story of music is the story of our urge to invent, connect, rebel –…
London Symphony Orchestra, Upshaw, Adams, Barbican Hall (Review)
You learn a lot about a composer from the pieces they revere – and for John Adams what might have seemed like an unlikely opening gambit to kick-start this short stack of three concerts with the London…
A Conversation With CORINNE WINTERS
Backstage at English National Opera, Edward Seckerson meets Corinne Winters – Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata. Peter Konwitschny’s highly filmic new staging of Verdi’s La Traviata is now an opera in four “pictures”: no interval, no grandstanding finales – not…
A Conversation with JOHN WILSON
Tuesday 21st May 2013, Newbury Festival at Sydmonton Court. In conversation with John Wilson. … [Read More]
A Conversation With JUDE KELLY & TIM WALKER: The Rest Is Noise Festival
Saturday 19th January 2013 6.15pm, Royal Festival Hall In conversation with Jude Kelly and Tim Walker to mark the start of The Rest Is Noise Festival 2013. … [Read More]
Richard Rodney Bennett (1936-2012)
Just a word or two about an extraordinary musician and a genuinely lovely man. From his precocious early years at the cutting edge of the musical avant garde to those many and memorable nights where just the man and…
Into the madhouse… “The Changeling” at the Young Vic
The Young Vic’s slogan is “It’s a big world in here”. It’s a changing world, too. This most adaptable of venues wrong foots you with every visit. It’s quite simply a different environment for every show, a…
Wagner “Der fliegende Holländer”, Zurich Opera, Royal Festival Hall
Why anyone these days would want to perform Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer with an interval when even the three act version was so plainly fashioned to be performed without one is beyond me. There is that tell-tale…
Renée Fleming, Barbican Hall (Review)
Building a memorable solo recital is an art in itself – that we know – but personalising it so precisely to your vocal character that it’s hard to imagine other voices even contemplating such a programme, now…