Handel
The Holy Grail of concert-going: I Fagiolini deliver serious musicianship that never takes itself too seriously
We’ve all read the article. It does the rounds with the dispiriting regularity of an unwanted dish on a sushi…
Desperate mothers, abandoned babies: the tragic story of London’s foundlings
One of the oddest of Bloomsbury’s event venues must be the Foundling Museum. The handsome building on Coram’s Fields houses…
ENO's Jack the Ripper needs to decide if it wants to be a gore-fest or social history
Is it possible to write a feminist opera about Jack the Ripper? Composer Iain Bell thinks it is, and his…
In praise of the English Touring Opera — a minor miracle of the arts world
Wolverhampton; Workington; Blackburn; Sheffield; Lancaster; Hackney. Every year English Touring Opera does what our national opera company doesn’t: packs up…
Often baffling but ultimately entertaining: Britten’s Paul Bunyan reviewed
‘I feel I have learned lots about what not to write for the theatre…’ There’s a prevailing idea that the…
A fun evening that finished early enough for dinner – neither a given in Handel
On a sward of AstroTurf somewhere off Silicon Roundabout, Mountain Media is hosting its summer party and, well, it’s the…
A delicious operatic ragout of horror: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk reviewed
There is famously no door into the late-night diner of Edward Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks’. Its three silent patrons are trapped behind…
ENO's La traviata was so comprehensive a flop that it is painful to go into detail
Handel’s Rinaldo has not been highly regarded even by his most ardent admirers. I have never understood why — even…
Excellent but there’s too much larking about: ENO’s Rodelinda reviewed
ENO has revived Richard Jones’s production of Handel’s Rodelinda. It was warmly greeted on its first outing in 2014, though…
One of the best shows we’ve seen in ages from the ETO: Giulio Cesare reviewed
Previously on Giulio Cesare… English Touring Opera’s new season caters cannily to the box-set generation by chopping Handel’s Egyptian power-and-politics…
Time to ditch authenticity for early music Proms
They say the first step towards recovery is admitting that you have a problem. So I’m staging an intervention and…
The righteous tone of recipients of state money has been noticeable lately
By the time you read this, the campaign will have drawn fractiously to its close, so here is a strong…
First-rate musical performance & production: Garsington’s Semele reviewed
Handel’s Semele, one of the most enjoyable operas (or opera-oratorio, if you insist) in the repertoire, is, in its upshot,…
Insufferable rubbish: Glyndebourne’s Hipermestra reviewed
Anyone who thinks they have experienced absolute boredom, or even doubts that such a state can exist, should go to…
Denial has rarely looked so good: ENO’s Partenope reviewed
Ceci n’est pas une Partenope. Forget the warring classical kingdoms of Naples and Cumae: this is surrealist Paris in the…
The thrills are in the visuals: Philip Glass’s Les Enfants Terribles reviewed
Kids: who’d have them? Certainly no one who has ever been to the opera. If they’re not murdering you, they’re…
Three ways not to do tragicomedy: English Touring Opera reviewed
‘Besides feeble writing, there is a mixture of tragic-comedy and buffoonery in it, which Apostolo Zeno and Metastasio had banished…
Life’s too short for ‘well-crafted’ pieces by musical mediocrities – and Handel
There’s a folder in my computer’s external hard drive in which you’ll find 24 complete recordings of the Bach Cello…
Mutton, potatoes and ale – how children ate in the 19th century
Modern Britain scratches its head over children who are overfed, not underfed, while guilt-ridden mothers stand accused of feeding children…
Memo to directors: it’s not all about you: Beethoven’s Leonore reviewed
Leonore is the first version of Beethoven’s Fidelio, and Stephen Medcalf thinks it’s better. ‘What Leonore gives us is more…
A Handel opera that isn't by Handel, and a Mozart opera composed in 1990, reviewed
Disguises and mistaken identities are a staple of opera, but usually as part of the onstage, not the offstage, action.…
Has there ever been a better time to be a lover of Baroque opera?
Time was when early music was a 6 p.m. concert, Baroque began with Bach and ended with Corelli’s Christmas Concerto,…
Startling and sublime - even the candles got a round of applause: Glyndebourne’s Saul reviewed
Caius Gabriel Cibber’s statues of ‘Melancholy’ and ‘Raving Madness’, their eyes staring blindly into the void, petrified in torment, once…
Why we should revel in the empty virtuosity of Handel's pasticcios
Before the jukebox musical, back when Mamma Mia!, Jersey Boys and Viva Forever! were still dollar-shaped glints in an as-yet-unborn…
Alice in Wonderland at the Barbican reviewed: too much miaowing
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson loved little girls. He loved to tell them stories, he loved to feed them jam, he loved…
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