Dewsbury Lunchtime Chamber Concert – David Greed’s Farewell Recital
Finding anyone who has been in the same employment for 44 years is a great rarity, particularly in the modern age. Such length of service approaches a theoretical maximum timespan, bridging leaving education and reaching a sensible retirement age. David Greed’s tenure as the Opera North Orchestra‘s leader is currently the longest in Europe. “It […]
Northern Ballet’s Casanova – Pure Pleasure!
Last performed in Leeds in 2017, Choreographer Kenneth Tindall’s Casanova (his first full-evening ballet) takes its audience through the illustrious Lotharios life, in a whirlwind of atmospheric backdrops, sensual choreography and a moving score. Tindall was, until 2015, a dancer with the company, and along with Director David Nixon (who has recently stepped down from […]
Macbeth at Leeds Playhouse
There is no glamour in power or war in this production. The visceral staging makes mud and blood central, with brothers fighting together find vigour in victory yet still battered and bruised. The battle scene itself is energetically choreographed, adding a touch of the Playhouse’s musical prowess to Shakespeare’s dialogue. Leeds Playhouse claims this season’s […]
Handel’s Alcina – Opera North at Leeds Grand Theatre
Just what does a major composer have to do to get his music heard? Beethoven declared Handel to be the greatest that had ever lived, superior, therefore, in his inestimable opinion, to Haydn, Mozart and J.S. Bach. Yet, after a revival of Admeto at Covent Garden in 1754 until a heavily-truncated staging of Rodelinda in […]
Opera North: Rigoletto at Leeds Grand Theatre
This is Opera North’s first new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto for sixteen years, and for British-Nigerian Femi Elufowoju Jr., his theatrical skills honed at Stratford East’s Theatre Royal, a first venture at directing opera. With a cast comprised of several ON debutants, the result is an undoubted musical triumph, although something of a directorial oddity. […]
