‘Flott’ reflects on her career, a lifetime partnership with Graham Johnson and how she felt winning the Legion d’Honneur. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Prokofiev’s fruity soufflé proves the perfect snack opera for today.

Why Opera Australia’s AD believes culture is just as deserving as rugby and more important than submarines. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

★★★★☆ Stuart Skelton earns top laurels as Wagner’s tortured hero. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

John Bell's 'Cuban' take on Bizet offers a lot to sing and dance about.

Opera’s self-confessed “new boy” talks about sexual tension, operatic frustrations and rolling with the punches. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

★★★★☆ It’s on for young and old in this hilarious update of Bizet’s rarely-performed opera buffa. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The Wagnerian tenor, renowned for his strong, lyrical voice, has passed away aged 81. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

★★★½☆ Slick design and charismatic comedy carries this staging of Rossini’s romantic farce. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Boston Early Music Festival singers and period instrument players, co-directed by lutenists Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, are in cracking form on this studio recording of Handel’s buoyant pastoral. The vocal ensemble are exceptional, especially in their opening number O the Pleasure of the Plains (which always reminds me of For unto us a Child is born from Messiah). Handel wrote Acis and Galatea for the Duke of Chandos to celebrate his marriage and the building of his lavish mansion, the Cannons, in Middlesex. The house had its own orchestra as well as extensive gardens with the latest water features. It didn’t survive for long, however, for within 20 years it was demolished and its features sold off when Chandos’s fortune took a dive in the South Sea Bubble. In Ovid’s tale, the shepherd Acis is metamorphosed into a fountain by his lover Galatea after the jealous cyclops Polyphemus launches a boulder which crushes him. Thus the gardens of Cannons made the perfect setting for this pastoral tale. Handel was briefly the Duke’s resident composer while things were quiet in London (and where he was having trouble managing to stage his Italian operas). Hats off to the excellent soloists, tenor…

Lang Lang may have made the grade, but would a young Sokolov pick up a recording contract today?

How Chinese superstar pianist Lang Lang learned to deliver substance as well as style. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in