In the fictional museum of operatic history the Meyerbeer exhibit invites curiosity more than it commands respect. One sees his place in the grand – very grand – scheme of things, one can appreciate his influence, acknowledge…
It starts with the gunshot. It had to. Legions of Bodyguard aficionados who know the movie frame by frame will have cried blue murder if it hadn’t. So there it is – the opening scene of the…
Lehar’s Merry Widow has been been spreading enchantment across the globe for well over a century. She’s the vintage champagne of operettas and the prospect of John Wilson popping her cork was more than a little enticing.…
It seems inexplicable now that Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Merrily We Roll Along should have bombed so ignominiously on its first Broadway outing in 1981. But then again what is clearer than ever from Maria Friedman’s…
Any young composer who finds himself at the opposite end of a programme from Walton’s First Symphony had better be good. Edward Nesbit – whose piece Parallels was commissioned by the LSO Panufnik Young Composer’s Scheme –…
The Britten Centenary began here, on his 99th birthday, on Saint Cecilia Day, at Wigmore Hall, and it seemed only fitting that the composer who gave him so much inspiration should have the first word – or…
There are few directors who can realise the potential of bodies on stage as dramatically as Calixto Bieito. Toilet cubicles aside (and it says something of our national press that this has become the image most associated…
Not for nothing did Vaughan Williams frame his “Morality” The Pilgim’s Progress with scenes of John Bunyan imprisoned. Bunyan would not conform to Church of England doctrines and neither, in his way, would Vaughan Williams. The Pilgrim’s…
Some symphonies are natural curtain-raisers: Sibelius’ Third is one. Music began with rhythm and in this piece the cellos are the distant drummers who bring us back to basics with their curt opening measures. Osmo Vänskä clipped…
It should have been Sir Colin Davis, of course (and the news filtering through on Sir Colin is sadly not encouraging), but the very first chord of Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto was a startling demonstration of what makes…