Prom 8, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Adès, Royal Albert Hall (Review)
Death becomes him. Enter Thomas Adès, composer, conductor, and now grim reaper. The much-anticipated World Premiere of his Totentanz rolled into the Proms like a black juggernaut, an invitation to the dance that none could resist sitting…
Tchaikovsky “Eugene Onegin”, Royal Opera House (Review)
We begin where we will end – with Onegin and Tatyana closing the door on the life that was and the life that might have been. It’s one of the great “what ifs” of opera and Kasper…
Mendelssohn “Elijah”, Britten Sinfonia and Britten Sinfonia Voices, Delfs, Barbican Hall
The Victorians have a lot to answer for. Their appetite for the Old Testament blood and thunder of Mendelssohn’s Elijah knew no bounds – and they liked it big. Size mattered and that big-is-better, choir-of-thousands, communal approach…
Prom 58: Mendelssohn “Elijah”, Gabireli Consort & Players, McCreesh, Royal Albert Hall
When the fiery chariot finally arrived to transport Elijah aloft and the antiphonal trumpets and drums and assorted ophicleides of Paul McCreesh’s mightily augmented Gabrieli Players Consort and Players were rent asunder by the open-stopped thrust of…
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…