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
‘If I were a gambler,’ I wrote in The Independent seventeen years ago, ‘I’d put serious money on a 23-year-old Russian mezzo who will make her discreet solo UK debut in a Suffolk church...Read More
Emerging from a rare sabbatical, Evgeny Kissin – the world’s most acclaimed classical pianist – has just published his autobiography. He has also just married a childhood friend, and he’s ...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
‘If there’s no blood, there’s no entertainment,’ shouts Netia Jones, as her Puck catapults himself high into the air, and lands with a sickening thump on the rehearsal room floor. ‘Gosh – ...Read More