Music & Libretto: Leoš Janáček (libretto from Dostoyevsky’s novel, English translation by David Pountney) Director: David Pountney Designer: Maria Bjornson Lighting: Chris Ellis Conductor: Tomáš Hanus Reviewer: Leah Tozer The curtain rises on an intricate, ramshackle construction of bricks, boards, and broken men cascading across a remarkable, multi-levelled recreation of a communal prison cell. We see in, through a literal ...
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Music: Benjamin Britten Libretto: E.M. Forster Director: Orpha Phelan Conductor: Garry Walker Reviewer: Sue Collier This Opera North production of Billy Bud is in two acts and is based on the short story Billy Budd by Herman Melville. The story is set in 1797, at a time when the French are revolting and there is great enmity between Britain and ...
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Composer: Elena Langer Librettist &Director: David Pountney Reviewer:Karen Bussell WNO celebrates Beaumarchais’ money-loving, conniving rogue in its episodic spring tour Figaro Forever where Rossini and Mozart’s classics are joined by the world premiere of Langer’s sequel. In a dark departure from the frothy frivolity of Rossini and Mozart’s comic canters, director and librettist David Pountney and composer Elena Langer have ...
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Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Librettist:Lorenzo Da Ponte English translation: Jeremy Sams Conductor: Lothar Koenigs Director: Tobias Richter Reviewer: Karen Bussell WNO celebrates Beaumarchais’ money-loving, conniving rogue in its episodic spring tour Figaro Forever where Rossini and Mozart’s classics are joined by the world premiere of Langer’s sequel in which the scoundrel gets a divorce. So second up is Mozart’s ...
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Music: Elena Langer Libretto and Director: David Pountney Reviewer: Barbara Michaels A collaboration between the Russian-born composer Elena Langer and Welsh National Opera’s innovative and artistic (not to mention highly articulate) director David Pountney was always going to be exciting. Figaro Gets a Divorce, conceived by Langer in collaboration with Pountney, is a sequel to The Marriage of Figaro ...
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Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Librettist:Lorenzo Da Ponte English translation: Jeremy Sams Conductor:Lothar Koenigs Director: Tobias Richter Reviewer: Beth Steer Part of the Welsh National Opera’s spring season, Figaro Forever, The Marriage of Figaro is a four act opera that sits between The Barber of Seville and Figaro Gets a Divorce to chronicle the life of one of opera’s most ...
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Music: Benjamin Britten Libretto: Myfanwy Piper Director: Yoshi Oida Reviewer: Malcolm Wallace [rating:2.5] Based on the novella of the same name by Thomas Mann, Death in Venice premiered in 1973 marking Benjamin Britten’s final opera and is being revived by Opera North as part of their Festival of Britten. However, this is not Benjamin Britten at his best and anyone ...
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Music &Libbretto: Leoš Janáček Director: David Pountney Reviewer: Barbara Michaels [Rating:4.5] One of the trio of operas being performed by Welsh National Opera under the thematic banner of Free Spirits, director David Pountney’s production of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen has lost none of its magic in the thirty three years since its inception. Pountney’s treatment of Janáček’s tragicomic masterpiece ...
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