Tag Archives: Verdi

Opera: Giuseppe Verdi Libretto: Francesco Maria Piave Director: James Macdonald Revival director: Caroline Chaney Reviewer: Barbara Michaels Set in the White House during the Kennedy era, James Macdonald’s revival of Verdi’s Rigoletto was first staged by Welsh National Opera seventeen years ago.  There have been a few adjustments since, and, given our present political state, the production keeps pace with ...

Composer: Giuseppe Verdi  Librettist: Francesco Maria Piave Director: Matthew Richardson Conductor: Rumon Gamba Reviewer: Dominic Corr Seduction, tangled with an overbearing father all play a part in the turmoil of Rigoletto, the hunchbacked jester. The 1851 libretto opera has been revived by the Scottish Opera following Matthew Richardson’s 2011 production. Now, fully escaping its historical censorship, Rigoletto can serve to ...

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 ...

Conductor: Edward Gardner Reviewer: Sam Chipman This year is the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare: the world renowned bard of Stratford-upon-Avon. Even centuries after his death his plays are performed, readand studied ceaselessly around the globe – a testament to his genius. Music features prominently in Shakespeare’s playsand this concert features work that has been inspired by ...

Opera Up Close has developed a reputation for bringing fresh and intimate stagings of opera into new venues. Combining first class acting and singing and inventive orchestrations, the company has now staged 21 operas. As their production of Verdi's La traviata prepares to open at Kilburn's Tricycle Theatre, Opera Up Close's Artistic Director, Robin Norton-Hale, spoke to Glen Pearce about ...

Scottish Opera will perform Verdi’s full-blooded and monumentalIl trovatorein a fiery production set to match the grandeur and drama of the music. Conjuring up the spirit of the Dark Ages, a world rife with superstition and ignorance, this turbulent tale follows an atrocious chain of events set in motion by an accusation of witchcraft. The stark, brooding lines of the ...

Director: David Pountney Reviewer: Barbara Michaels A pot-pourri of operatic favourites, Chorus! not only showcases the world class talents of Welsh National Opera’s justly famed chorus, but those of the inimitable Lesley Garrett. All it lacks is Bryn Terfel but you can’t have everything, although to have him singing the title rôle in Wagner’s Flying Dutchman- the famous Spinning Chorus ...

Artistic Direction and Choreography: Mourad Merzouki Music Design: The Debussy String Quartet and AS’N Reviewer: Peter Jacobs Compagnie Käfig is a well-established French street dance company founded in 1996 by Mourad Merzouki. Boxe Boxe is their latest production and is about boxing. But that tells you little of what to expect from this company or this show and what it ...