Has classical lost its power to protest? Or was Bernstein at the Berlin Wall, music’s last stand? Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Michielotto’s new staging of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell raised plenty of hackles in London, but will it here? This week, social media pundits, the Twittersphere and even the venerable BBC have been abuzz with the latest operatic hiatus at the Royal Opera House. It seems the opening night audience for c new staging of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell raised plenty of hackles along with some unprecedented heckles during a graphic act of sexual violence during the Act III ballet. Yes, they booed DURING the performance, not just at the end as seems to be increasingly the case at the traditionally sedate London venue. The leadership team of Kasper Holten and Sir Antonio Pappano have, to my mind, offered a speedy and dignified defence of their artistic choices but that doesn’t seem to have extinguished the ardour of the UK’s anti-‘Regie’ brigade (for those new to the term: Regietheater is German for director’s theatre and is a term that refers to the modern practice of allowing a director freedom in devising the way a given opera or play is staged so that the creator’s original, specific intentions or stage directions be changed, together with major elements of geographical location, chronological situation, casting and plot). As it happens,…

Antonio Pappano conducts an all-star cast for the sensational Warner Classics release. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

  After just two instalments in his projected seven-opera Mozart cycle, Rolando Villazón has taken a premature diversion a collection of obscure Mozart concert arias that he found in a Munich music shop. As he’s demonstrated already in Cosi fan tutte and Don Giovanni, Villazón is a persuasive Mozart advocate, but he needs all that skill and enthusiasm to make this grab-bag of juvenilia, rejects and odd-jobs hold together. The opening of the aria Aura che intorno spiri must be one of the greatest opening phrases in all Mozart, but the sublimity is intermittent. Many arias hint at genius and then faff about in a stop-start demonstration of genius almost at work. The most intriguing are Con ossequio, con rispetto and La spoco deluso, where one could speculate that Rossini built his career out of Mozart’s reject bin. The earliest aria, Va, dal furor portata, is gob-smacking when judged by the standards of 9-year-old composers, but compared with the Mozart of 20 years later, it’s scarcely must-have. Just how far Mozart progressed during the intervening period is demonstrated in the only German language inclusion, Musst ich auch durch taussend Drachen, sounding so much more mature and dramatic in intent, and…

Ian Bostridge may well be the busiest interpreter of Benjamin Britten in this the composer’s 100th birthday year. Previous recordings of Our Hunting Fathers and the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings have demonstrated the English tenor’s sensitive characterisation of text, but this latest collection of song cycles, written for Britten’s partner and muse Peter Pears, is Bostridge’s finest and most compelling offering yet. A big part of that is Antonio Pappano’s accompaniment. The duo collaborated on a Schubert album, but the eccentricities of Britten’s piano writing – all angular figurations and chiaroscuro effects he put into play himself – allow his imagination, and fingers, to run wild, whether bright and brilliant or sparse and eerie. Both performers vary their touch and articulation judiciously for a disc that is alive at every moment, leaving you hanging off every word. Listen to the way Bostridge leans into dissonance, gouging the text of Before Life and After from the late cycle Winter Words. Or the cat-and-mouse runs passed between singer and pianist in the nursery rhyme-like Wagtail and Baby. Bostridge’s intonation and enunciation are faultless but never characterless; I particularly relish how he shapes drawn-out melismas such as the sweet-toned “Seraphim”. His……

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…

Ten maestros discuss the music they are passionate about, Isserlis on his newest recording, Ibragimova on hers and the stories behind the most famous musical portraits. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Maestro Antonio Pappano is knighted for his services to opera in the UK. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in