Philip Glass, the minimalist American composer, fills opera houseswith the same facility as his British ritualistic counterpart, Sir HarrisonBirtwhistle empties them. The sell-out run at New York’s Metropolitan Opera ofhis 1984 creation, Akhnaten, an opera...
I tried. Honestly, I really made an effort. I read the synopsis twice before the performance at London’s Coliseum. I know the work of English composer, Sir Harrison Birtwhistle, is “difficult”. I’ve savoured Gawain and The Minotaur in the past. So,...
Friday, 25th October, was World Opera Day, a collaboration among Opera America, Opera Europa and Opera Latinoamérica. Festivities at the annual Wexford Festival Opera, held since 1951 in Ireland’s south eastern corner, were already in full swing. There was even a...
“Is this a handbag that I see before me”? Excellent question, Thane of Glamis. You can get around to the bloody dagger stuff later in the plot. Imagine. Here you are, Macbeth, Scene I, wandering across a blasted heath with your pal Banquo, minding your own business...
Knickers in Philadelphia were missing. AWOL. Not a shred. Potential disaster. In Sergei Prokofiev’s 1918 opera, The Love for Three Oranges, knickers are essential, the fulcrum against which the lever of the plot is applied. No knickers, no reason for the...
Hamlet isn’t brooding on the battlements in Denmark. He’s in the Hague; starring in a new production from Oper2Day, the Dutch “new energy from old sources” opera company. Its premiere was broadcast live...
The key to Jules Massenet’s opera Manon – first performed at the Opéra-Comique, Paris, in 1884 – is the portrayal of the young Manon Lescaut, when she arrives at an Amiens coaching inn during the first scene. If she is miscast – the wrong key – the plot of...
A defining Gala performance of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess kicked off New York Metropolitan Opera Company’s Season at the Lincoln Center on Monday. But on Tuesday the glitter was off the Gala. Can’t ignore the elephant that had just left the stage. Placido...
“Glimmerglass”. The name of the opera festival held annually in Otsego county, upstate New York, near Cooperstown, sounds a siren call. It’s not a real location, which only adds to the allure. Cooperstown is real enough, home to the Baseball Hall of Fame and a totem...
I am dozing on a sun lounger; under a Carob tree; in the Algarve; overlooking the Ria Formosa Natural Park and a glittering sea beyond. I am dreaming. A Daily Telegraph sketch writer has just become Prime Minister; England has won the cricket World Cup; I am about to...
David Ross, the mobile mogul who built his Carphone Warehouse empire in the “loadsamoney” era of the nineties, has revealed his true character in his Foundation’s twenty-tens Nevill Holt opera project. It turns out Mr. Ross has “loadsataste.” Nevill Holt is no grand...
A new work by American composer, David Lang, is always an important event. He self describes as a passionate, prolific and complicated composer. This is true. He is big potatoes. I grabbed one of the few remaining seats at the premiere last Thursday of Prisoner...