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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Rolando Villazón is back. That was the overriding headline of this highly emotional revival of Massenet’s heartbreaker. The other was how and why Benoit Jacquot’s painterly staging came to be so lambasted from some quarters when it…
Watching Lorin Maazel in this the latest instalment of his Philharmonia Mahler cycle was a puzzling and unsettling experience. He was there and yet not there; he was controlled and yet not; he conducted from memory but…
It must be hard comprehending death when you’ve barely begun living – but the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain has a corporate sixth sense about the subtext of music that never ceases to amaze. Their latest…
The Royal Opera’s first ever staging of Rimsky-Korsakov’s rich and surprising opera The Tsar’s Bride sees history repeating itself in unsettling ways. The poster-coloured prelude has no sooner run its course – one of the composer’s most…
The first thing you notice about Elizabeth Llewellyn’s voice is the bloom – a plushy, covered quality that extends pretty much throughout the range and only hardens under pressure at the top. The slightly chilly St. John’s…