Opera North – Mozart: Requiem and Neo Muyanga: After Tears
I have known and loved Mozart’s Requiem for over 50 years, the last and, intriguingly, unfinished work by one of music’s unequivocal geniuses. I have sung in it. I have listened to dozens of performances and recordings, from church settings to concert hall, chamber choirs to major choral societies, organ accompaniment to full classical orchestra, […]
Opera North: The Pearl Fishers at Leeds Grand Theatre
Like Mozart and Schubert before him, Georges Bizet did not see out his thirties. Unlike them, his published output, from first to last, consisted of works destined solely for the theatre. Carmen, the world’s most-performed opera, would be Bizet’s last triumph. The Pearl Fishers, given here in director Matthew Eberhardt‘s new realisation for Opera North, […]
Opera North – Richard Strauss: Ariadne Auf Naxos at Leeds Grand Theatre
Over the years, Opera North has done us sterling service in putting on Strauss’ operas. The Company still managed semi-staged offerings of the sensational, flagitious tales embodied in both Elektra and Salomé, even when it had no theatre in which to perform. This co-production, with Gothenburg Opera, of the delicious Ariadne Auf Naxos is the […]
LEOŠ JANÁČEK: THE CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN
On these shores and considerably further afield, Opera North is held in peerless regard for its Janáček productions. This vintage staging of The Cunning Little Vixen, revived here from its last appearance in 1984, formed the root of a now burgeoning reputation. Maria Björnson‘s exquisite, almost fairyland animal costumes, her beautifully-apt, undulating countryside set, David […]
Giacomo Puccini: Tosca – Reviewed
Just about every opera entwines two people fatefully pierced by Cupid’s arrow and, if the storyline went no further than that, what wondrously glorious music would we forever associate with the genre, yet how woefully brief would each production be … the classical music equivalent of a three-minute single. Opera keeps our interest for an […]
