Verbier can still spring surprises, even at the venerable age of twenty-five. Marking that anniversary with a gala concert this summer, they corralled more musical celebrities on stage than had ever b...Read More
Paul Bunyan, ENO at Wilton’s As the poet Stephen Spender lamented, Britain never got the great opera which should have resulted from that seemingly dream pairing, Benjamin Britten and WH Auden. The...Read More
Tosca, Grand Theatre, Leeds Post-Weinstein, and following revelations of world-wide corruption in the Catholic church, recent history has played into the hands of any director who wants to give Puccin...Read More
Leeds International Piano Competition, 2018 When the redoubtable Fanny Waterman set up the Leeds Piano Competition in 1963, no one could have predicted its longevity, or the effect it would have on pi...Read More
The Last Prom 2018, Royal Albert Hall The Proms always go out on a high, if you discount the last one whose interest is political rather than musical. In Prom 72, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra...Read More
BBC Young Musician 40th Anniversary, Royal Albert Hall With Brexit threatening to unpick all the things which make life worth living in Britain, it behoves us to count our spoons (as the old saying go...Read More
Jacob Collier and Friends, Royal Albert Hall It goes without saying that 24-year-old Jacob Collier is a phenomenon. There’s no instrument he can’t play, and he sometimes plays several at once. He ...Read More
The Skating Rink, Garsington Opera at Wormsley On paper The Skating Rink had a lot going for it. A distinguished cast, and in Stewart Laing an experienced director-designer. A composer, David Sawer, w...Read More
Don Giovanni, Royal Opera House, London Some revivals save shows, others only serve to highlight their inherent weaknesses. Richard Jones’s replacement for John Copley’s much-loved Covent Garden B...Read More
Pelléas et Mélisande, Glyndebourne Festival Opera The lost souls of Pelléas et Mélisande inhabit a castle; their drama takes place in a forest by the sea. Director Stefan Herheim initially toyed w...Read More