The soprano’s first solo album in five years reveals a new dramatic voice and opens up some intriguing future career paths. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Boat ferrying singers to the floating stage at the Bregenz Festival capsizes depositing three singers into the lake. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

George Benjamin’s new opera is based on the strange and brutal 13th-century Provençal tale Le Coeur Mangê, in which an unnamed ruler (The Protector) asks an illuminator (The Boy) to glorify his power for perpetuity in a book. The Boy’s presence awakens the sexual independence of The Protector’s wife (Agnes), and their subsequent affair leads to the murder of The Boy. In a grisly dénouement, The Protector forces his wife to eat The Boy’s heart, after which she jumps from a window to avoid a similar fate. In order to allow the contemporary world to “bleed through”, British playwright Martin Crimp has added three “angels” who manipulate the drama as if conducting an experiment and double as subsidiary characters. It’s a brilliant conceit that produces
a satisfyingly tight piece of musical theatre matched in intellectual rigor by Benjamin’s razor-sharp score. Crimp ingeniously mixes direct speech with characters narrating their own actions, which lends the recording a special clarity, as you are frequently aware of what a character is doing or thinking. Benjamin uses his orchestra (in this instance 
the peerless Mahler Chamber Orchestra) with enormous imagination and sensitivity to evoke the musical world of the medieval illuminator. Bass viola da gamba……

Now a sprightly 86, Australian tenor Robert Gard looks back on filming the role of Aschenbach for Tony Palmer. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

John Bell's new production of Puccini's "shabby little shocker" is far from shabby but still a shocker.

Britten's response to the Vietnam War receives an auspicious Aussie premiere at long last.

Glass’s hypnotic masterpiece will keep you enthralled for hours; and hours; and hours… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Revered British conductor Sir Colin Davis passed away a few months ago, yet reviewing his last recording still comes a something of a shock. Listening to this live concert performance of Weber’s ghostly masterpiece is a welcome reminder of the virtues that kept this tireless musical advocate at the top of his game for 50 years. Carl Maria von Weber was a regular visitor in the Wagner household while the young Richard was growing up, and nowhere was his influence more clearly felt on the operatic giant- to-be than in his gothic fairytale, Der Freischütz. Davis homes in on that Wagnerian dimension, and if his Weber is a relatively sedate affair next to his blistering Berlioz, it benefits from his other great strengths – instinctive sense of orchestral balance and sensitivity to singers. It’s a big-boned reading and the LSO plays its collective heart out for their Chief. Soloists are ideally memorable and the horn section is to die for. Christine Brewer makes a fine Agathe. Her ample voice is beautifully shaded when required and her prayer is most moving. New Zealand tenor Simon O’Neill sings the vacillating hero Max. His voice is clear and penetrating but it’s a tight…

There’s much to admire as Emma Matthews saddles up Elijah Moshinsky’s warhorse. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Critics call time on Castorf's Ring while Barenboim shows Londoners how it should be done.

Opera Australia and Sydney Theatre Company return laden with honours from the 2013 awards ceremony. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The Albert Herring co-stars on Britten, bad behaviour and bringing up a baby together.