Tag Archives: Giselle Allen

Writer, music & lyrics: Gian Carlo Menotti Director: Max Hoehn Reviewer: Beth Steer Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Consul, a tale of hopelessness, bureaucracy, and frustration, originally produced in 1950, is restaged by the Welsh National Opera in this recent performance at the Wales Millennium Centre. Running for one night only – and in one single act – as part of ...

Composer: Giacomo Puccini with Librettist Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica Director: Edward Dick Conductor: Antony Hermus Reviewer: Dave Cunningham   Opera is an art form that demands grand themes and high passion to be most effective. Well, stories do not come more melodramatic than the doomed love affair between the diva Tosca and the painter Cavaradossi. Tosca (soprano Giselle Allen) lives ...

Music: Giacomo Puccini Libretto: Giuseppe Giacoso and Luigi Illica Director: Edward Dick Reviewer: Dawn Smallwood Tosca marks the start of Opera North’s autumn season, a special time as the company will have been founded exactly 40 years ago this November.  Tosca is a popular opera that made its very first performance in Rome back in 1900, while Opera North first ...

Cavalleria rusticana Music: Pietro Mascagni Libretto: Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci Director: Karolina Sofulak Trial by Jury Music: Arthur Sullivan Libretto: William Schwenck Gilbert Director: John Savournin Reviewer: Dawn Smallwood Both Cavalleria rusticana and Trial by Jury are part of The Little Greats festival which Opera North is presenting this autumn.  The double bill of short operas makes up the evening’s lineup and both productions make their ...

 Music:  Giacomo Puccini Libretto: Giuseppe Adami and Giovacchino Forzano Director: David Pountney and Michael Barker-Caven Conductor: Jac van Steen  Reviewer: Dave Cunningham In the current programme of Opera North shows at The Lowry the double bill of Il Tabarro / Suor Angelica feels like the runt of the litter. After all the other shows are more famous, have lavish sets ...

Music: Giacomo Puccini Lyrics: Giuseppe Adami (Il tabarro), Giovacchino Forzano (Suor Angelica) Director: David Pountney (Il tabarro), Michael Barker-Caven (Suor Angelica) Reviewer: Dawn Smallwood Opera North’s Season of Secrets introduces its double bill of Puccini’s, Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica. Both one-act operas are part of Puccini’s Il trittico, a trio of operas, both premiering in 1918 and sung in ...

Composer: Benjamin Britten Libretto: Monatagu Slater (after ‘The Borough’ by George Crabbe) Director: Phyllida Lloyd Conductor: Jac van Steen Reviewer: Dave Cunningham [rating:4] Opera North’s ‘ Festival of Britten’ opens with an uncompromising and powerful version of the composer’s Peter Grimes. Although an inquest decides that the death of his apprentice was accidental townspeople of The Borough suspect that fisherman ...

Composer: Giacomo Puccini Librettist: Giusepe Giacosa and Luigi Illica Original texts: Henry Murger Director: Annabel Arden Conductor: Simon Phillippo Reviewer: Ann Bawtree [rating:5] The ever popular opera La Boheme may be one of the very shortest in the history of the art but is undeniably not short on emotion. The curtain, bearing a sketched outline of the rooftops of Paris, ...