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VERDI Sicillian Vespers

Setting a grand opera on a grand opera-house stage costumed at the time of its premiere has been done before...

Reviewed by Mike Ashman in issue: 06/2015

SHCHEDRIN The Left-Hander

Nikolay Leskov is probably best known to English readers, certainly to English music lovers, as the author of The Lady...

Reviewed by John Warrack in issue: 06/2015

ROSSINI William Tell

This 2013 ‘Rossini in Wildbad’ production of Guillaume Tell is probably as fine an achievement as any in the festival’s...

Reviewed by Richard Osborne in issue: 06/2015

PURCELL Dido and Aeneas

Dido and Aeneas strikes me as a piece that struggles to gain a great deal from modern-day opera-house stagings. The...

Reviewed by Lindsay Kemp in issue: 06/2015

MONTEVERDI Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria

There is a thorny issue about how much (or little) of Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (Venice, 1640) is actually...

Reviewed by David Vickers in issue: 06/2015

DVOŘÁK Alfred

The only explanation for Alfred is that it was a practice opera. Dvořák's first attempt in the medium, it was...

Reviewed by David Patrick Stearns in issue: 06/2015

DONIZETTI La Favorite

Like Les martyrs (see below), La favorite – which had its Paris premiere at the end of the same year...

Reviewed by Mike Ashman in issue: 06/2015

MARAIS; DESTOUCHES; HANDEL Sémélé

It seems an excellent idea to take extracts from different settings of the story of Semele. Marais’s tragédie lyrique Sémélé...

Reviewed by David Vickers in issue: 05/2015

Bryan Hymel: Héroïque

Long before he titled his first solo disc ‘Héroïque’, Bryan Hymel achieved hero status by filling in for fallen comrades...

Reviewed by David Patrick Stearns in issue: 05/2015

Diana Damrau: Fiamma Belcanto

Sopranos in Italian repertoire suddenly seem to have been reading Philip Gossett’s Divas and Scholars book. Here, following the work...

Reviewed by Mike Ashman in issue: 05/2015

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