Singcircle, Barbican, 20.11.17 Three men and three women, each with a microphone, seated in a semi-circle round a table on which a luminous globe had been placed: seven ascending notes, and a s...Read More
Lucia di Lammermoor, Royal Opera House, 8.11.17 Donizetti composed his Scottish tragedy nearly two centuries ago, yet real life has only recently caught up with it. Lucia loves Edgardo, but is ...Read More
La tragédie de Carmen, Wilton’s Music Hall, London Wilton’s Music Hall is a charming and perfectly-preserved remnant of London’s historic East End, and it’s still serving the purpose f...Read More
Emerson Quartet, St John’s Smith Square, London, 1.11.17 ‘Incomprehensible’ was one leading critic’s verdict when Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge was premiered in 1825. ‘This work will be c...Read More
Jordi Savall and Hesperion Ensemble, Wigmore Hall, 29.10.17 Who said the Wigmore Hall, the world’s temple of chamber music, was stuffy? Disregard for a moment the devoted crowd who routinely ...Read More
Semele, Royal Festival Hall, 18.10.17 I’ve seen quite a few stage productions of Handel’s Semele, but I can’t remember one as dramatic as the one I’ve just heard by the Orchestra of the Age of...Read More
Aida, Coliseum An opera house needs a story to launch the season, and ENO had three. First, their chief executive had suddenly announced her premature departure. Second, Aida would be the first chance...Read More
La traviata, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, 2017 La traviata may be one of that small handful of operas which everyone loves, but since the revival of Tom Cairns’s production is turning out to ...Read More
Mitridate, re di Ponto, Royal Opera house, London Nobody ever talks about Graham Vick’s 26-year-old production of Mitridate, re di Ponto – it seemed to have sunk without trace – but Coven...Read More
Don Carlo, Covent Garden, 12.5.17 With its God-given melodies, ravishing orchestration, and intricate but whizzing plot, Verdi’s Don Carlo ticks all the boxes, including that of topicality 150 years...Read More