Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim, Boulez, Royal Festival Hall
Liszt and Wagner, Boulez and Barenboim – iconic names, analogous kinships. As conductors and musical soulmates both Boulez and Barenboim have boldly sought and found satisfying answers to the Wagner myth but who, one wonders, could have…
Mascagni “L’amico Fritz”, Opera Holland Park
It’s all a little unlikely: Protestants and Jews in rural Alsace, Yiddish melodies given a distinctly Italianate spin, the longest and most infuriating foreplay in opera, and not one single death. I’m not sure when there was…
Verdi “Simon Boccanegra”, English National Opera
It doesn’t take long to establish that there is an extraordinary director at work here. The body language, the tangible involvement of every character on stage, the way in which emotional journeys are charted and feelings expressed…
Bernstein “Candide”, London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Kristjan Jarvi, Barbican Hall
Leonard Bernstein’s most bountiful score – a mouth-watering confection of sugar and spice and all things nice – is also a masterpiece of parody and counter-parody. Voltaire’s Candide was short and pithy; Bernstein and his legion of…
Mozart “The Magic Flute”, Garsington Opera at Wormsley
The sun really smiled on the opening of Garsington Opera’s handsome new summer pavilion at the Getty’s Wormsley estate – but in doing so it rather turned Mozart’s Magic Flute on its head flooding light and enlightenment…
London Symphony Orchestra, Uchida, Davis, Barbican Hall
It says something for Sir Colin Davis’ eternal vitality and musical curiosity that he should come to the dynamic Carl Nielsen symphonies so late in life. The Sixth and last of them carries the elliptical subtitle “Sinfonia…
Verdi “Macbeth”, Royal Opera House
Phyllida Lloyd’s 2002 staging of Verdi’s Macbeth is prematurely looking like a parody of itself – an exhibit in one of designer Anthony Ward’s gilded display cases. But it’s sounding rather terrific in this second revival and…
Wagner “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg”, Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Some pieces you just have to trust and trust implicitly. When a text is as good as Wagner’s Die Meistersinger it’s a wise director who takes a step back and let the words, the characters, the bountiful…
Britten “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, English National Opera, London Coliseum
Viruses, it seems, make no distinction between mortals and spirits. Even Fairy Kings can succumb. And so it was that Iestyn Davies, a much-anticipated Oberon, acted the role on stage while William Towers provided his singing voice…
London Symphony Orchestra, Bronfman, Gergiev, Barbican Hall
As sometimes happens in live performances a soloist’s encore might display a brilliance and precision that one might have felt lacking in the main event – or, in this case, events. Yefim Bronfman’s account of the Paganini-Liszt…