A glorious slideshow of works rolls out with a superb sense of freshness under Lisiecki’s fingers.

Il Trittico can be seen as Puccini’s operatic response to the challenge of cinema: three pacey shorts with flavoursome, impressionistic music designed to project a sense of time, place and action but with less of a focus on the traditional aria.  Richard Jones’ smart looking production from Covent Garden is its first Royal Opera staging in fifty years but with an excellent ensemble and stylish conducting from Antonio Pappano it clearly deserves to find a place in their permanent repertoire. The first instalment, Il Tabarro, is a miniature verissmo shocker set on a sweltering night in a seedy, Parisian waterside community (just off the red light district it would appear in this staging).  This is the dark side of La Bohème (Puccini even quotes from Mimi’s aria).  A tale of adultery and murder it receives passionate and pointedly non-glamorous performances from Eva-Maria Westbroek and Aleksandrs Antonenko as the doomed lovers.  Lucio Gallo puts in a sympathetic turn as the betrayed husband although vocally he is a bit dull.  The supporting roles are beautifully realised, especially Jeremy White and Irina Mishura as a world-weary docker and his wife. Next comes Puccini’s personal favourite, the gentle tragedy of Suor Angelica, which is…

It’s easy to see why Berlioz’s overtures are among the most consistently popular symphonic pieces with audiences young and old. With vividly orchestrated melodies that linger in the memory, dramatic shifts of mood and high-octane rhythms, they are irresistible. This collection, featuring the Bergen Philharmonic conducted by Englishman Sir Andrew Davis, is like listening to a roll call of old favourites. It starts with a bang – the whirlwind intro to Le Corsaire – and finishes with the great rolling finale to Benvenuto Cellini. On the way it takes in two stalwarts in Les Francs-Juges and Le Carnaval Romaine, the Shakespearean sweep of Le Roi Lear, the Scottish political romance of Waverly and the comic interplay of Beatrice and Benedict. Davis controls all of this with a master’s touch and the orchestra responds in kind. The SACD recording compares favourably with older standbys like Colin Davis’s Staatskapelle Dresden performances and Adrian Boult’s 1950s versions with the LPO. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Andrew Ford’s eclectic tastes and playful persona, well known from his bitingly witty and perceptive critical essays and radio shows are well represented here in this collection of finely crafted compositions from 2001-2007. The main work, Learning to Howl for soprano, soprano saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, harp and percussion, sets verses of Sappho and other mostly women poets across the centuries in an approachable lyrical style – the vocal writing refreshingly natural and idiomatic. The work has an austere, delicate beauty with its sparse accompaniment of harp and percussion and Ford’s keen ear for sonority and colour is much in evidence. Jane Sheldon’s pure tone and accurate intonation interweaves well with the wind obbligatos played by Margery Smith, but the songs would benefit from more dramatic projection and variety of tone on the vocalist’s part. The other lengthy work here Elegy in a Country Graveyard overlays recorded interviews of elderly residents with choir and ensemble to create an evocatively atmospheric depiction of a spectacularly positioned graveyard at Robertson in NSW’s Southern Highlands – a nostalgic tribute if quaintly ‘ABC Radio’ in character with its cawing crows. Three short works complete the disc of which the standout is Snatches of Old…

A charming and visually appealing tale filled with energy, humour and heart - yet without a hint of sentimentality.

Rafael Bonachela’s erotically charged choreography shines new light on Benjamin Britten. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Richard Mills announces a new opera from Iain Grandage, a legendary Traviata and another Sondheim musical. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Since the film Shine shot him to fame, Helfgott’s star has hardly waned. Yet he has as many skeptics as admirers. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Having lessons and visiting Alison Mitchell in Scotland was a wonderful experience, and also the first time I had been travelling by myself in Europe. Scotland was beautiful and Edinburgh was a charming city to me, with its old buildings and at its outskirts, rolling hills and grey sea. Seeing Alison onstage performing was very exciting and I loved her performance of the Ibert concerto with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. She was totally in her element and it made me feel very privileged to have her teach me in a few private lessons. During these lessons, we covered many aspects of flute technique and some of the repertoire I had learnt in the past year. We particularly focused on tone, and how to create a greater palette of sound, through lip flexibility exercises and developing support from the core. They definitely weren’t pretty scale exercises, in fact they sound quite ugly and required much concentration. One little flinch would set of a little bump in the tone or worse, my top lip would start quivering because the muscles were underdeveloped. We also discussed the tongue, the enemy of articulation. Without getting into too much detail, it is pretty hard to…

Brett Dean and George Dreyfus head the list of winners in a diverse cross-section of Australian arts talent. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Dawn Upshaw, Anthony Marwood and Yevgeny Sudbin are among the guests at the ACO’s pre-fortieth birthday party. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The Polish-born Met Opera star is very much flavour of the month but beware of his famous black-list. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in