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Musics can die… a sermon to the converted

Posted on February 19, 2023March 12, 2023 by Michael Church
Musics can die… I was born in Conwy, a fishing village in north Wales, and many of my earliest memories are of singing. The Second World War was at its darkest hour, and my father was fighting in Fr... Read More

Stephen Hough in the ascendent

Posted on February 19, 2023March 17, 2023 by Michael Church
Composer, belle-lettrist, polemicist, novelist, painter, teacher, and failed priest – as well as pianist – the newly-knighted Stephen Hough must sometimes lose track of his multifarious ac... Read More

The ROH Flute – a masterpiece of staging

Posted on December 17, 2022February 4, 2023 by Michael Church
The Magic Flute Royal Opera House, London There are a few opera productions which never grow stale, they just get better, and so it is with director David McVicar’s version of The Magic Flute. It wa... Read More

In memoriam Lars Vogt

Posted on October 12, 2022October 18, 2022 by Michael Church
Lars Vogt remembered, By Michael Church   Can one play vibrato on the piano? Since it’s just a box of hammers, with each making only momentary contact with its string, the common-sense answer m... Read More

Evgeny Kissin on Russian anti-Semitism, in an interview with Michael Church

Posted on August 16, 2022September 9, 2022 by Michael Church
It’s an ill wind… Temporarily prevented from performing in Verbier by tendonitis in his left shoulder, Evgeny Kissin suddenly has time on his hands, and is in a mood, I’m told, to give an interv... Read More

Afghan musicians in London

Posted on July 6, 2022July 7, 2022 by Michael Church
Orchestral Music of Afghanistan Afghan soloists plus the Oxford Philharmonic EartH, Hackney [the capitalised H is correct] Qur’an scholars will never agree on the vexed question of whether the enjoy... Read More

Micheli’s ‘Alcina’ at Glyndebourne – a provocative triumph

Posted on July 4, 2022July 8, 2022 by Michael Church
Alcina Glyndebourne Festival Opera, West Sussex   ★★★★★ In Francesco Micheli’s new production of Handel’s Alcina, the lights go up on a little family whose dysfunctional demeanour sugg... Read More

A powerful and convincing Butterfly at the ROH

Posted on June 15, 2022June 16, 2022 by Michael Church
Madama Butterfly Royal Opera House, London, ★★★★ Nobody could accuse Covent Garden of backwardness in virtue-signalling. They recently announced plans for trigger-warnings when murder, rape, a... Read More

From Glyndebourne a weird Boheme, with brilliant principals

Posted on June 12, 2022June 15, 2022 by Michael Church
  La bohème Glyndebourne Festival Opera,  ★★★★ It seems to matter more to Floris Visser that an audience should recognise his personal imprint, than whether he’s served a work as it d... Read More

At Garsington, the ‘Orfeo’ of our dreams, and a brilliantly revived ‘Cosi’

Posted on June 3, 2022June 6, 2022 by Michael Church
Orfeo/Cosi fan tutte Garsington Opera, Wormsley The director and designer of Garsington’s new Orfeo – John Caird and Robert Jones – invite their audience to get involved in the ‘immersive arti... Read More
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Recent Posts

  • Musics can die… a sermon to the converted
  • Stephen Hough in the ascendent
  • The ROH Flute – a masterpiece of staging
  • In memoriam Lars Vogt
  • Evgeny Kissin on Russian anti-Semitism, in an interview with Michael Church

Recent Comments

  • FRANCESCO MICHELI on Micheli’s ‘Alcina’ at Glyndebourne – a provocative triumph
  • D irvine on Phage medicine – at last the BBC and the press wake up
  • Richard Seymour Roques on Phage medicine – at last the BBC and the press wake up
  • Adam on Anderszewski celebrates his fiftieth at the Wigmore in typically unorthodox style
  • Nicholas on Anderszewski celebrates his fiftieth at the Wigmore in typically unorthodox style

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