Michael Tanner

Bach wins through

St Matthew Passion - Glyndebourne<br />Rigoletto - Royal Opera House

issue 21 July 2007

Bach’s St Matthew Passion doesn’t seem an obvious ‘Glyndebourne opera’, except from the point of view of the non-Londoner having to use public transport to get there, who might well regard the whole outing as a penitential pilgrimage. At the third performance the atmosphere did seem unusually hushed. What we were offered was an almost entirely silent play within which a performance of Bach’s masterpiece took place.

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