A Pasolini-inspired Tosca at La Monnaie does not quite find the pleasure in the pain.
The fact that Barbara Hannigan has never performed at The Metropolitan Opera is just plain dumb.
Iain Bell and Lydia Steier‘s Medusa stuns in Brussels.
Calixto Bieito‘s production of Idomeneo at La Monnaie is anchored by a committed cast, but gets swept up in pseudo-psychoanalytic imagery — and foot fetishism.
La Monnaie’s flamboyantly busy new production of Benvenuto Cellini reads more burlesque than Berlioz.
Fine music-making meets a clunker of a production in La Monnaie‘s revival of Norma
Dmitry Matvienko led a performance of Mussorgsky and Shostakovich at La Monnaie with meticulous rectitude.
A starry cast is hampered by Christof Loy‘s dour production of Rusalka in Barcelona
Carmen in Brussels is dramatically vibrant, if vocally stretched
Félix Fourdrain‘s “féerie” Les Contes de Perrault by the Frivolités Parisiennes is as fun for adults as it is for children
This performance of Mahler’s Symphony N°8 at the Bozar in Brussels will probably be my last ever Mahler concert.
As I mentioned in my last article (on the subject of Calixto Bieito’s production of Das Rheingold at the Paris Opera), in what the French might call une histoire belge, La Monnaie’s Ring cycle started with Romeo Castellucci as its director, and is now ending with Pierre Audi.
Nigel Wilkinson takes on the first installment of the Paris Opera’s new Calixto Bieito-directed Ring Cycle
Back to Brussels last Sunday for my third new opera of the season (after The Time of our Singing, also at La Monnaie, and Picture a day like this, at the Opéra Comique): Mikael Karlsson’s Fanny and Alexander, with a libretto by Royce Vavrek.
Nigel Wilkinson reviews Kris Defoort‘s kaleidoscopic, unsettling new opera in Brussels.
People these days often exclaim “…..is everything!” but often it feels like gross hyperbole. But surely anyone who has seen Mark Morris’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato since it premiered in 1989 would agree that it is indeed everything!
A brace of Handel operas at the George Enescu International Festival.
“Trove Thursday” escapes to an exotic place with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sadko.
“Trove Thursday” turns to a quintet of baritone/bass voices: Matthias Goerne, Simon Keenlyside, Georg Nigl, Thomas Quasthoff and René Pape performing works by Pfitzner, Sibelius, Adams, Martin and Schubert.
Today’s Rusalka video overview covers filmed performances of Dvorák’s opera since 2010.
Operatic history can be cruel where multiple works with the same subject are concerned
Trove Thursday” presents Béatrice et Bénédict in a 2009 performance featuring Joyce DiDonato and Charles Workman and conducted by Sir Colin Davis.
Several prima donnas have ought to resurrect La Vestale, including Renata Scotto, whose priestess highlights this week’s “Trove Thursday.”
The controversial production of La traviata from La Monnaie directed by Andrea Breth is now available for viewing online.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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