Tag Archives: Opera North

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, ...

The Rite of Spring Music: Igor Stravinsky Choreographer: Jeanguy Saintus Gianni Schicchi Music: Giacomo Puccini Director: Christopher Alden Conductor: Garry Walker Reviewer: Dawn Smallwood This production marks the first-ever collaboration between Opera North and Phoenix Dance Company.  Garry Walker conducts both Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi in the company of Opera North’s orchestra.  In another first, The ...

Musicians: Fitzwilliam String Quartet                   Opera North String Quartet Reviewer: Ron Simpson The Fitzwilliam String Quartet’s appearance at the Howard Assembly Room was celebratory in mood, notably in the stunning performance of Shostakovich’s String Octet with the Opera North String Quartet which concluded the evening, the perfect antidote to any mistaken belief ...

Music/Libretto: Leoš Janáček Director: Tim Albery Reviewer: Dawn Smallwood Janáček’s Katya Kabanova returns to Opera North’s repertoire for the winter season after this production premiered in 2007. This three-act opera is based on V. Červinka’s translation of Ostrovsky’s The Storm which exposes the societal attitudes among the Russian’s merchant class. Set by the Volga River, the opera is about Katya ...