Book review - Pierre Boulez: Organised Delirium (by Caroline Potter)
Neither a biography of his early years, nor a close analysis of the pieces that blew up post-war...
Search the Reviews Database
DEBUSSY Pelléas and Mélisande
ENO 30 years ago. For the company’s first Pelléas, a controversial stage production (Harry Kupfer) decidedly not set in some...
Reviewed by Mike Ashman in issue: 03/2012
Vittorio Grigolo: Arrivederci
For those who have been on Mars, the Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo once sang in both the Sistine Chapel choir...
Reviewed by Mike Ashman in issue: 06/2012
WAGNER Tannhäuser
Though often a director of dazzling invention, Robert Carsen takes such a contrary approach to Tannhäuser in this production that,...
Reviewed by David Patrick Stearns in issue: 06/2012
VIVALDI Orlando Furioso, RV728
Not so much furious as mad: and they don’t come much madder than Orlando in this production by Pierre Audi....
Reviewed by Richard Lawrence in issue: 06/2012
MONTEVERDI L'incoronazione di Poppea
Monteverdi’s last opera is renowned for two particular features: the principal characters are drawn from history rather than legend, and...
Reviewed by Richard Lawrence in issue: 06/2012
MASSENET Werther
It is a shame that this live recording of Werther comes to us as audio only. Although the Royal Opera’s...
Reviewed by Richard Fairman in issue: 06/2012
HERMANN Wuthering Heights
The full plot of Emily Brontë’s novel makes those of Russian 19th-century epics read like Noddy. Like Carlisle Floyd, Bernard...
Reviewed by Mike Ashman in issue: 06/2012
HARVEY Wagner Dream
Avoiding the more prosaic title, Wagner’s Dream, Jonathan Harvey and his librettist Jean-Claude Carrière identify their true theme: a 21st-century...
Reviewed by Arnold Whittall in issue: 06/2012
HANDEL Il pastor fido, HWV8a
The musical and theatrical extravagances of Handel’s first London opera, Rinaldo, had created a sensation early in 1711. Over a...
Reviewed by Richard Wigmore in issue: 06/2012
WAGNER Lohengrin
When Orfeo’s Bayreuth series was first launched a decade ago, orchestral representatives at the Festival were especially keen to see...
Reviewed by Mike Ashman in issue: 07/2012
Hi-Fi, Books, Reissues & Archive Reviews
Book review - Tchaikovsky’s Empire: A New Life of Russia’s Greatest Composer (by Simon Morrison)
Morrison’s Tchaikovsky is a rationalist who rather enjoys himself and aspires to a Mozartian poise...
Review - Berl Senofsky: American Virtuoso
This Senofsky double pack is revelatory, especially Brahms’s Third Sonata, a thrilling account with...
Review - Max Rostal: Concert Tours 1956-1965
These are engaging, spontaneous-sounding performances that if widely heard could well spark off a...
Review - The Complete Symphonic, Concertante & Sacred Music Recordings (Orch dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia / Antonio Pappano)
Richard Bratby charts the relationship between the conductor and his Italian orchestra
Review - recent Mengelberg releases from the archives
‘Mengelberg’s performances – like Furtwängler’s – were for the most part products of careful...
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