At Home He Feels Like A Tourist

Category: Opera

• Baroque Classical Music Classics Culture Early Music London Opera Renaissance

  English Touring Opera at the Hackney Empire review ****

  English Touring Opera Hackney Empire, 12th October 2018 Purcell – Dido and Aeneas Carissimi – Jonas Gesualdo – I Will Not Speak I am partial to English Touring Opera’s productions. The repertoire tends to be up my street, with a bias to smaller, chamber and Baroque works, reflecting resources and…

  October 22, 2018
• Classical Music Contemporary Classical Culture London Opera Renaissance Theatre

  The Second Violinist at the Barbican review ***

  The Second Violinist Barbican Theatre 7th September 2018 Ok so I bought a ticket here on a bit of a whim and because it garnered some awards on its premiere in Ireland. Now I know from past experience that the playwright Enda Walsh is not a man who likes to…

  September 18, 2018
• Classical Music Contemporary Classical London Opera Theatre

  Greek at the Arcola Theatre review *****

  Greek Grimeborn, Arcola Theatre, 13th August 2018 It is a shame Steven Berkoff’s plays don’t get performed more often. They do, like the stage, film and TV villains he has memorably played, (there he is above doing the menacing thing), sometimes lapse into “in yer face” cliche, but at their…

  August 27, 2018
• Classical Music Culture London Opera Theatre

  The Rape of Lucretia at the Arcola Theatre review ****

  The Rape of Lucretia Grimeborn, Arcola Theatre, 1st August 2018 The Rape of Lucretia is a story with a long historical and artistic pedigree. It lies at the heart of the creation legend of the founding of the Roman Republic in the late 500s BCE, was documented by Livy and…

  August 27, 2018
• Classical Music Culture London Opera

  The Turn of the Screw at the Open Air Theatre review *****

  The Turn of the Screw Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, ENO, 29th June 2018 Benjamin Britten. The Turn of the Screw. Members of the ENO Orchestra conducted by up and coming talent Toby Purser. Timothy Sheader directing. A Soutra Gilmour set. At the Open Air Theatre. On a beautiful late…

  July 22, 2018
• Classical Music Contemporary Classical Culture Ecology London Opera

  Cave at the Printworks review ****

  Cave The Printworks, Surrey Quays, 23rd June 2018 Cave is the second collaboration between composer Tansy Davies and librettist Nick Drake. Their last work, Between Worlds, which took as its subject the Twin Towers on 9/11, was superb. It was an immensely moving and sensitive elegy which focussed on the…

  July 13, 2018
• Baroque Classical Music Concert Culture London Opera

  Venetian Baroque: Academy of Ancient Music at St Luke’s Old St review ****

  Academy of Ancient Music, Bojan Cicic (violin), Persephone Gibbs (violin), Sarah McMahon (cello), Alistair Ross (harpsichord), William Cater (theorbo) LSO St Luke’s Old St, 15th June 2018 Dario Castello – Sonatas No 10 a 3 Book Two, No 1 a 2 Book One, Sonata No 1 for violin (Book Two),…

  July 1, 2018
• Culture London Opera Theatre

  The Moderate Soprano at the Duke of York’s Theatre review ****

  The Moderate Soprano Duke of York’s Theatre, 7th June 1018 There are a couple of weeks to go in the run of David Hare’s The Moderate Soprano at the Duke of York’s Theatre. There are plenty of (discounted) tickets left. You could do a lot worse than seeing this if…

  June 19, 2018
• Classical Music Contemporary Classical Culture History Literature London Opera Theatre

  Lessons in Love and Violence at the Royal Opera House review ****

  Lessons in Love and Violence Royal Opera House, 26th May 2018 Here is an extract from an illuminated manuscript showing Eddy II getting a crown. Or more precisely a second crown. Not sure what that is all about but given he was by reputation a high maintenance sort of fella…

  June 6, 2018
• Culture History London Musicals Opera Pop/Rock/Indie

  Caroline, or Change at the Hampstead Theatre review *****

  Caroline, or Change Hampstead Theatre, 18th April 2018 How many exceptions does it take before the rule is unproven? I don’t, as a rule, like musicals, as I have oft repeated on these very pages. I absolutely adored this though. That might be because it isn’t your classic show tunes,…

  April 29, 2018
• Classical Music Culture London Opera

  The Marriage of Figaro at the ENO review *****

  The Marriage of Figaro English National Opera, 12th April 2018 It isn’t easy to think of a better opera than the Marriage of Figaro. And, as we culture vultures know, when opera works there is scarcely any entertainment to match it. It is just a shame that opera so rarely…

  April 24, 2018
• Contemporary Classical Culture Literature London Opera Theatre

  Coraline at the Barbican Theatre review ****

  Coraline Barbican Theatre, 7th April 2018 Was I the only person in the audience who knew nothing about Neil Gaiman’s 2003 cult children’s fantasy novella from whence came Mark-Anthony Turnage’s opera Coraline? It certainly felt like it. To be fair the provenance had dawned on me some time before the…

  April 16, 2018