Tag Archives: Opera

Music and Lyrics: Pamela Tan-Nicholson, based on the operas by Giacomo Puccini and Georges Bizet Director: Pamela Tan-Nicholson Reviewer: Scott Matthewman Making opera more accessible to newcomers who may be intimidated by the traditions of the form – long shows, often sung in a foreign language, plots that manage to be simultaneously labyrinthine and simplistic – is a laudable goal. ...

Director: David Pountney Conductor: Carlo Rizzi Set designer: Raymond Bauer Reviewer: Julia Beasley The force of destiny is not in Leonora’s favour. Against her father’s wishes, she plans to elope with a freedom fighter. It all goes wrong when he accidentally kills her dad. Her brother vows to avenge his father’s death. Leonora runs away and becomes a hermit. The ...

Director / Revival Director: Michael Blakemore / Benjamin Davis Music: Giacomo Puccini Text: Giuseppe Giacosa / Luigi Illica Reviewer: Helen Tope Lust, greed, violence and corruption. As a mission statement, Tosca certainly meets every one of its objectives; the 1900 classic retains an edge a century on. With librettists Giacosa and Illica (the dream team behind La Boheme and Madame Butterfly), Puccini has crafted an opera ...

Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Director: Alessandro Talevi Conductor: Christoph Altstaedt Reviewer: Tate James Don Giovanni, lover and leaver extraordinaire, has arrived out of character at The Lowry in Salford. Mozart’s dark tale sees the famous scoundrel commit murder, provoke adultery and otherwise stir the pot before his inevitable comeuppance. Opera North’s latest incarnation paints the hero (is he actually the ...

Director: Neil Armfield Composer: Brett Dean Librettist: Matthew Jocelyn Reviewer: Helen Tope Hamlet seems tailor-made for opera. A story of loyalty and revenge, it has all the core components. To amplify Shakespeare’s play into the larger-than-life dynamics needed for opera, nerves of steel are required. Too little, and the opera falls flat. Too much, and you lose the subtlety of ...

Music: Johann Strauss II Libretto: Carl Haffner & Richard Genee Director: John Copley Conductor: James Southall Reviewer: Kris Hallett The ball is back in fashion and never went away. Or at least so it appears at Bristol Hippodrome where Johann Strauss II Die Fledermaus is currently floating as light as meringue and as exquisite as syrup to be Welsh National ...

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 ...

Composer: Johann Strauss II Director: John Copley Conductor:  James Southall Revival Director: Sarah Crisp Reviewer: Daryl Holden “This evening, we will have a boring domestic comedy”. With this particular joke arising midway through the second act of Welsh National Opera’s Die Fledermaus, you would be forgiven for thinking that they are indeed talking about their own show. For the most ...