ENO's new Castor and Pollux: a show stripped bare in every way, but stylish...
Even on the opera stage where you're allowed plenty of licence, it isn't easy to turn someone into a star (other than metaphorically). But at the end of Rameau's Castor and Pollux the two eponymous...
View ArticleENO's new Eugene Onegin is a great show: shame about the casting though
Eugene Onegin is the perfect opera in search of the perfect production, which it rarely gets. I've seen some stinkers in my time – including the infamous Brokeback Mountain staging in Munich several...
View ArticleWhy The Death of Klinghoffer deserves a better platform than it gets at ENO
So, in the end it passed without incident. Apart from a solitary man outside on the pavement with a placard that hoped opera-goers would enjoy watching a Jewish cripple murdered by a gang of...
View ArticleCan the English National Opera justify the claims it's making for this new...
When is a full, professional staging not a full, professional staging? That's the question. And I was thinking it today as I trawled through the list of English National Opera productions just...
View ArticleENO's new Flying Dutchman : a terrific show despite a lead role better suited...
I'm not sure if it's possible to have a great Flying Dutchman without a great baritone in the title role and a great Senta alongside – but if it is, then ENO's new Dutchman qualifies, with a terrific...
View ArticleENO's new production of Billy Budd hasn't mastered the ship – or the characters
One of the problems with Billy Budd – which in my book ranks among the greatest achievements of opera – is that of Billy's ship, the Indomitable. It's such a hellish place, it's hard to understand why...
View ArticleDamon Albarn's kitsch Dr Dee: if a rock star hadn't written it, ENO wouldn't...
When rock stars reach a certain age and decide to go classical, the result is usually as awkward as when classical performers reach a certain age and go rock. You wish they'd stick to what they know....
View ArticleDancing and dead animals don't save a dreary Julius Caesar at the Coliseum
Here's a potential rule for staging opera: animals – dead or alive – and dance routines don't compensate for lack of ideas. And they particularly don't in ENO's new Julius Caesar, which is musically...
View ArticleOpera's most outrageous stage director cleans his act up (more or less) at ENO
It's standard practice in Calixto Bieito shows that scarcely anyone ends up un-raped, un-bloodied, un-fellated, and with a full bladder (after the inevitable urination scene). His abrasive...
View ArticleA Traviata for our times at ENO
ENO’s new Traviata is a Traviata for our times: an all-economy show pared to the bone and with the production values of one of those small opera stagings that you find these days at upstairs rooms in...
View ArticleWhy stage an opera if you don't believe in it? A question for Calixto Bieito...
Sex, sleaze, violence and body fluids are Calixto Bieito’s speciality, and his inventiveness in finding opportunities to slip them into the least likely operatic repertoire (I’m looking forward to his...
View ArticleHow NOT to update Rigoletto (and other operas)
Do you think the words opera characters sing should match what they do on stage? By that I mean literally match: when, say, in La bohème, Rodolfo sings "Andate da Momus, tenete il post" ("Continue on...
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