Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Chailly, Barbican Hall
The venerable and venerated Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra gave the first ever complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies and Riccardo Chailly, their 19th Kapellmeister, was impatient to renew that sense of revelation and surprise in an age when each…
Jonas Kaufmann, Royal Festival Hall
Jonas Kaufmann has re-written the Rule Book on tenors. A lyric voice that darkens to embrace the heroic repertoire, an occasional heldentenor who can also sing Lehár with supreme elegance, a German who is utterly, completely, and…
Wagner “Die Fliegender Holländer”, Royal Opera House
We actually don’t need the billowing front cloth, the torrential rain, or strafing searchlights – from the moment Wagner lays bare those sizzling open fifths in the strings he does the tempest-tossed thing for us. Indeed that…
Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Abbado, Royal Festival Hall
Precious few conductors bring an aura of their own into the concert hall, still fewer change our perceptions of music and the way we listen to it. Claudio Abbado is one. And the orchestra he hand-picked back…
Mozart “The Marriage of Figaro”, English National Opera
As the orchestra belatedly tunes up, a blind Don Basilio taps his way to the harpsichord at the side of the stage. His clothes are recognisably 18th century, as is his instrument. But the labyrinthine set beyond…
Philharmonia Orchestra, Maazel, Royal Festival Hall
Lorin Maazel may well have set some kind of record here for two of the most protracted and incoherent performances in Mahler history. Even before solo violas had finished tracing out the searching opening line of the…
Weinberg “The Passenger”, English National Opera
The railway tracks to Auschwitz hit the buffers just above the orchestra pit – the fount of so much heavenly music. Now there’s an irony. There’s a front cloth suggesting Auschwitz sacking and once that has risen,…
Gounod “Faust”, Royal Opera House
“This is my domain”, says Méphistophéles, and suddenly we his audience are behind the footlights looking into an auditorium just like ours. It isn’t a particular original idea casting the devil as master of ceremonies and purveyor…
Puccini “Il Trittico”, Royal Opera House
The accepted wisdom on Puccini’s trio of one-acters, Il Trittico, is that Gianni Schicchi is the masterpiece, Suor Angelica of very particular and questionable taste, with Il Tabarro, all shadow and melodrama, bringing up the rear. But…
Prom 74: The Last Night
There were funeral pyres to light, mountains to climb, and, of course, there was Jerusalem to build. All in a Last Night’s work. Another record-breaking season – an astonishing 94% of capacity – thundered to a close…