Tag Archives: Opera North

Composer: Guiseppe Verdi Libretto: Antonio Ghislanzoni Director: Annabel Arden Conductor: Sir Richard Armstrong Reviewer: Tim Harding It’s easy to think of Verdi’s Aida in grandiose terms: extravagant sets, large choruses of soldiers and priests, dancers, horses and chariots.  But is that what this opera is all about?  True, the Triumphal March in Act 2 traditionally contains all these elements, but there is ...

Music: Giuseppe Verdi Libretto: Antonio Ghislanzoni Director: Annabel Arden Conductor: Sir Richard Armstrong Reviewer: Sam Lowe There couldn’t have been a better venue choice for tonight’s opera than Bridgewater Hall. The sound of music and singing effortlessly swirls around the acoustics of the auditorium. Opera North’s concert staging of Aidamixes everyone around: the performers are right at the front, followed ...

Composer: Giuseppe Verdi Libretto: Antonio Ghislanzoni Conductor: Sir Richard Armstrong Director: Annabel Arden Reviewer: Ron Simpson At 227 in the Classic FM Hall of Fame is Aida, followed by (in brackets) “includes Grand March and Celeste Aida”. That sums up the problem with the opera: its general popularity rests on the first two of four acts and, also, to an ...

Orchestra: Orchestra of Opera North Conductor: Dalia Stasevska Soloist: Ana Maria Labin (soprano) Reviewer: Ron Simpson For the final concert in the Kirklees 2018-2019 season, the Orchestra of Opera North presented a programme under the title “Reflections”. Given that it started with Lutoslawski’s Musique funebre, continued with Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs of which the final line translates as “Is ...

Music: Igor Stravinsky / Giacomo Puccini Choreographer / Director: Jeanguy Saintus / Christopher Alden Conductor: Garry Walker Reviewer: Jo Beggs What sells the tickets for this double bill is probably Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, which famously caused ‘terrific uproar” (and not in a good way) at its 1913 premiere in Paris. The music is now so familiar to us that ...

Composer : Leoš Janáček after Ostrovsky’s The Storm Director: Tim Albery Conductor : Sian Edwards Reviewer: Dave Cunningham At 105 minutes Katya Kabanova is an awkward length for an opera: too short to require an interval but too long to be part of a double bill. However, absorbing the opera in a single sitting exposes the audience to the full raw emotion ...

Writer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Director: James Brining Conductor: George Jackson Reviewer: Frances Scott The imaginative, operatic world of The Magic Fluteoriginally begins in the middle of a chase following the character Tamino as he is tailed through a forest by an oversized serpent. Here, director James Brining has opted to open the production at a dinner party where we watch an ...

Orchestra: Orchestra of Opera North Conductor: Antony Hermus Soloist: Boris Giltburg (piano) Reviewer: Ron Simpson The latest in the Orchestra of Opera North’s Kirklees concerts, programmed for late Sunday afternoon, again emphasised the orchestra’s versatility. This concert of Russian works of the late 19th and 20th centuries came in the middle of a run of three operas at Leeds Grand, ...