One wonders whether an obsession with metrics and measurement has the potential to create arts organizations that are more preoccupied with finding systems that quickly and efficiently tick the Arts Council’s boxes than with creating meaningful, impactful art.
“Opera needs a reset. We think there needs to be a fundamental shift in the ecology.”
The eventually reopened Metropolitan Opera promises a swift return to its status quo ante as a farm team for the English National Opera, sharing the London company’s new Ring cycle directed by vieillard terrible Richard Jones.
The press department at the English National Opera is considering a revamp of the company’s press seating policy.
An image of the old, ruined Coventry Cathedral goes into closer and closer focus until the stage is dominated by a grassy stone.
Like most directors of this opera this century, David Alden is keen to outline the helplessness of women in the face of 19th century patriarchy.
A new production of La traviata by Daniel Kramer, the current artistic director of ENO, brings fresh ideas to the classic drama.
Nico Muhly has set himself the task of presenting Winston Graham’s elusive heroine Marnie on the operatic stage.
“English National Opera is staging a modern-day version of La bohème in which the lead female character is a heroin user rather than a consumptive.”
“Glenn Close‘s Norma Desmond is back.”
John Berry, artistic director of the English National Opera, has announced he intends to step down from his role after 20 years with the Company.
Our Own JJ (pictured) joins in the debate over the Düsseldorf Tannhäuser with Anne Midgette and John Berry.
Anyone looking for orgiastic obscenity in Calixto Bieito‘s production of Carmen at the London Coliseum, will be bitterly disappointed, writes Rupert Christiansen.
But not everyone is amused.
I have a confession to make about Britten’s opera Billy Budd: I don’t like it very much.”
The repertory for the upcoming season of the English National Opera (also known as “Peter Gelb‘s shopping list”) boasts the world premiere of a new opera by Philip Glass, The Perfect American, which imagines the last days of Walt Disney.
The ENO was filled with ghosts last week. Spectral, possibly illusory figures fleetingly materialized in the Internet chatrooms that provide the setting for much of Nico Muhly’s new opera Two Boys, and brutal boarding school memories came back to troubled life in director Christopher Alden’s dark take on Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
A few spoilsport commentators have complained that the clever marketing video for Nico Muhly‘s Two Boys at the English National Opera doesn’t accurately represent the somewhat dark subject matter of the new opera. La Cieca won’t take sides on this matter of vital import, but she will reveal to you, the cher public, that a…
The ever-alert PR people at the English National Opera (why can’t we have a company like this?) have assembled a “what if?” video to promote Nico Muhly‘s impending Two Boys, and thrown in an admirably scruffy “reality” actor to boot.
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
