We were not being served Wagner-lite. The Holy Grail was unveiled in its rightful realm on Thursday 3 April. London. “The Temple Church proved to be a setting like no other for Wagner’s opera, Parsifal” - the words of Robin Griffith-Jones, The Reverend and...
Gaetano Donizetti’s first big hit opera is back at La Fenice in Venice, after an absence of 157 years. A spotlight focused on Anna Bolena’s retreating back as she walked in passive dignity towards her executioner. Then, slowly narrowed until only the rear of the...
Verdi’s Aida is a powerful paradox: a breathtaking grand opera that is also intensely intimate. When the recently self-appointed chair of Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts decided to commission a new, follow up celebratory opera to mark the return of...
Filmed opera should be approached as a compliment to the classic staged performances, not as a replacement. That said, OperaGlass Works is building a portfolio of polished artistic gems. It must take a lot to make Sigourney Weaver burst into tears. But OperaGlass...
Nedda has sheer star quality. Her direction by Tara Faircloth built tension in the theatre to breaking point “This is the Opera”. On the morning of the opening night of Utah Opera’s Pagliacci – 1892, Ruggero Leoncavallo – I stood on the spot in Utah where on...
Heggie and Scheer’s opera is an excellent musical romp, with some deeply moving moments along the way. “Don’t call me Ishmael. Call me Greenhorn!” What? Composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer’s 2010 opera Moby-Dick, based on Henry Melville’s same...
This cast is fit to grace the main stage of any professional opera house. Tittle tattle travels fast. Even in Jane Austen’s prim and proper early 19th century world of Mansfield Park. No Instagram. The Bertram family gather round a scandal sheet to learn that...
If the intention of this opera is to scare the bejesus out of you, it succeeds. Watching Mark-André Dalbavie and Guillaume Métayer’s 2024 opera, The Melancholy of Resistance, a futuristic tale of a city succumbing to the forces of evil, was depressing...
Composer Mark-Anthony Turnage has a bad-boy reputation because he tells the story warts and all. Festen. Celebration. Bad boy composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and librettist Lee Hall invite you to Denmark, to a party to celebrate Helge Klingefeldt’s...
Even with director Lydia Steier mangling Spontini’s ending, this is Paris Opera at its best. When the grisly corpses of Roman hero general, Licinius, and his main squeeze, vestal virgin (virgin in a euphemistic sense) heroine, Julia, emerged bloodied, suspended and...
Italian soprano, Carmen Giannattasio, embodied Minnie’s swaggering authority. When the first chords of Puccini’s opera set in the Californian gold rush – La fanciulla del West – rang out in Bologna you could be forgiven for thinking you had turned up at a...
The Rest is Opera:
Making opera fun for those of us who ain’t aficianados!
Just announced. Randall Shannon will move on from his Executive Director role at Wexford Festival Opera on 14th February, when his contract ends. Parachuted in as an interim replacement is Loughlin Deegan, a freelance consultant. Despite the ritual Wexford ‘wished...
Dominic Sandbrook, the historian/podcaster/columnist has joined forces with composer Joseph Phibbs to awaken the dead. Sandbrook co-hosts podcast The Rest is Politics. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Marking Margaret Thatcher’s 100th birth-centenary an...
Eugene Onegin is one of the Master’s beloved operas. (There are too many). But when he turned up expectantly at The Royal Opera House, the cast seemed to have lost their voices. Because they were ballet dancers. Not being a Plié, Pointe, Porte de Bras sort of person...
The annual awards ceremony will be on November 13th, 2025, at the Stavros Niarchos Hall, Athens. Harry Hyman, Founder of the International Opera Awards announcing the venue said, “We’re thrilled to bring the International Opera Awards to Athens for the first...
Ms Davidsen has joyous news. She is to be the mother of twins, requiring a discreet withdrawal from performances from March until 2026. Scuttlebutt offers congratulations. The Master is jubilant. He’s a big fan. She is squeezing in a run as Leonora –...
The Master has tipped me off that Dr. Harry Brunjes, (he’s a real quack) Chairman of English National Opera has stepped down. As an interim appointment, Deputy Chair of ENO Louise Jeffries will oversee the process of seeking a permanent replacement. Time to hail...
Wrung out after last year’s Ring Cycle Longborough Festival Opera is taking a sideways glance at the Wagner family after the old man’s death. Warring cats in a sack. Wahnfried begins with the death of Richard Wagner and spans forty years of history. Think Succession!...
Their film of Verdi’s La Traviata is complete. The Master tells me it is a beautifully crafted piece. Available on Sky Arts. We watched. Susan Gaspar is Violetta, Thomas Elwin, Alfredo, and Roderick Williams is a compelling Germont, convincing Violetta she should...