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Author: Michael Church

McCrystal’s ‘Iolanthe’ – G&S can be trickier than it seems

Posted on February 14, 2018February 15, 2018 by Michael Church
Iolanthe, ENO, 13.2.18   Arthur Sullivan and WS Gilbert didn’t like each other, didn’t have much in common, and both had loftier ambitions than the creation of operettas. But if they’d stuc... Read More

The world according to Barrie Kosky

Posted on February 4, 2018February 5, 2018 by Michael Church
  Opera moves with the times: it’s no surprise that a Carmen in tune with the #metoo movement should open in Florence, with the exasperated heroine shooting her jealous lover dead. But that’s... Read More

Monteverdi at the Roundhouse

Posted on February 2, 2018February 3, 2018 by Michael Church
The Return of Ulysses, Roundhouse, 9.1.18 Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria is an ecstatically melodious succession of recitatives, duets, and arias telling of war, exile, love, and reven... Read More

Genesis Suite – mediocre music, great idea

Posted on February 2, 2018February 4, 2018 by Michael Church
Genesis Suite, Barbican, 13.1.18   In 1943, as news of the Holocaust and the mass flight of refugees was coming through, a Jewish New York musician named Nat Shilkret had an idea for a musical re... Read More

Malin Bystrom – the perfect Salome

Posted on February 2, 2018February 3, 2018 by Michael Church
Salome, Royal Opera House, 10.1.18   Richard Strauss based his Salome on Oscar Wilde’s play (written in French and banned in Britain) which turned on two taboo sexual obsessions: Herod’s for ... Read More

Simon Trpceski on a new path

Posted on February 2, 2018February 4, 2018 by Michael Church
Simon Trpceski and friends, Wigmore Hall, 21.1.18   We are accustomed to thinking of Simon Trpceski as a superlative pianist with a hotline to Beethoven, Brahms and the most rebarbative music of ... Read More

London recitals: Montero, Trifonov, Gavric, Olafsson, Jacobson

Posted on February 2, 2018February 4, 2018 by Michael Church
  Wigmore Hall: Gabriela Montero, Nov 14; Daniil Trifonov, Dec 7u; Ivana Gavric, Dec 28 St John’s Smith Square: Vikingur Olafsson, Nov 15; Julian Jacobson, Nov 26 It’s not keyboard artistry w... Read More

The heroism of Angela Hewitt

Posted on February 2, 2018February 3, 2018 by Michael Church
Angela Hewitt, Wigmore Hall, 26.1.18 There’s something heroic about Angela Hewitt’s Bach. This Canadian pianist has made Bach’s keyboard music the core of her performing life, twice taking it on... Read More

Glass’s Satyagraha

Posted on February 2, 2018February 3, 2018 by Michael Church
Satyagraha, ENO, 1.1.18   ‘Masterpiece’ – like ‘great’, ‘iconic’, and ‘legendary’ – is a word which should be used sparingly by critics, if at all. But it is absolutel... Read More

The spirit of Kodo

Posted on February 2, 2018February 2, 2018 by Michael Church
Drum children    There’s a felicitous double meaning in Kodo, the name of the celebrated Japanese drumming ensemble. Its written characters mean ‘drum child’, but an infinitesimally different... Read More
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