Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Royal Opera House Like Thomas Hardy with his condemned Tess – ‘a pure woman’ – Dmitry Shostakovich saw the merchant’s wife Katerina Ismailova, aka his double-...Read More
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
Semiramide, Royal Opera House, 22.11.17 Rossini’s Semiramide premiered in Venice in 1823, and throughout the nineteenth century it was a popular vehicle for great voices, but in the twentieth...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