Richard Bratby

Pitch-black satire drenched in an atmosphere of compelling unease: ETO’s Golden Cockerel reviewed

Plus: the Czech Philharmonic's Má vlast was everything you’d hope

Her movements are as graceful as her singing is brilliant: Alys Mererid Roberts as the Cockerel and Robert Lewis as the Astrologer in ETO’s The Golden Cockerel. Credit: © Richard Hubert Smith 
issue 02 April 2022
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  • The Golden Cockerel

    Buxton Opera House, touring until 30 May

  • Czech Philharmonic Orchestra/Wang/Bychkov

    Barbican Hall

  • Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Petrenko

    Royal Festival Hall

Blame it on Serge Diaghilev. Rimsky-Korsakov died in 1908 and never saw the première of his last opera, The Golden Cockerel. When the great showman finally presented it in Paris in 1914, it was as Le Coq d’Or: a spectacular opera-ballet hybrid, with colourful, folk-inspired designs by Natalia Goncharova that came to define the Ballets Russes in its imperial phase.

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