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Month: February 2018

Isserlis and Melnikov, the odd couple

Posted on February 22, 2018February 22, 2018 by Michael Church
Steven Isserlis/Alexander Melnikov, Wigmore Hall, 21.21.18 At first glance, Steven Isserlis and Alexander Melnikov might seem an odd couple – a mop-headed weirdo with a cello, and a priest-like pres... Read More

Dead Man Walking – a natural for ENO?

Posted on February 21, 2018February 21, 2018 by Michael Church
Dead Man Walking, Barbican, 20.2.18 First the back story. A nun named Sister Helen Prejean was asked to write to a convict on death row in Louisiana who was due to die for a double murder; she accompa... Read More

Dai Fujikura and his little box of tricks

Posted on February 18, 2018February 18, 2018 by Michael Church
Fujikura Portrait, Wigmore Hall, 17.2.18 A protégé of Pierre Boulez and George Benjamin, the Japanese-born composer Dai Fujikura has long been a favourite with British avant-garde musicians, thanks ... Read More

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
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