Concert Reviews

Opera Holland Park – La Gioconda
On a warm, slightly stuffy night, Opera Holland Park unveiled its new production of Ponchielli’s “La Gioconda” – London’s first staging of the work first premiered at La Scala in...
Barb Jungr – No Regrets
After her well-received Bob Dylan programme last year, Barb Jungr returned to the Almeida Theatre for an evening of classic 'chansons'.Jacques Brel quite reasonably dominated the set-list, albeit in recent...
Celebrating British Music Theatre – Chu Chin Chow
Not only does the ever-enterprising Finborough Theatre promote new plays as well as new musicals but also revives shows in its “Celebrating British Music Theatre” series. Having already revived Leslie...
Jette Parker Young Artists Summer Concert
The Jette Parker Young Artists Summer Concert has now become a welcome annual event where audiences, for whom hearing very young singers at college level may be just too raw...
Mostly Mozart 08 – Barbican Young Orchestra/Sir Colin Davis
In his welcome from the stage, Sir Nicholas Kenyon (MD of the Barbican Centre) said he was happy to take the ‘blame’ for the founding of the Barbican Young Orchestra...
Mostly Mozart 08 – Martin Fröst Plays Mozart
A similar pattern of programming to that in the excellent opening concert of this year’s “Mostly Mozart”, a ‘late’ Mozart concerto and an early Beethoven's symphony. Unfortunately second helpings seldom...
Zorro (the musical)
It’s not been a good year so far for new musicals in London. “Gone with the Wind” lived up to its title and was blown away; “Marguerite” is holding in...
Ravinia Music Festival – Mahler 6/Haitink
Four days after leading a superlative account of Mahler's ‘Resurrection’ Symphony with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (at Tanglewood), Bernard Haitink here made his Ravinia debut with the orchestra of which...
Li-Chun Su at St Olave’s
From time to time rumours circulate about an artist that are so compelling that he or she must be heard. Such is the case with Li-Chun Su, who has recently...
Christianne Stotijn, Isabelle van Keulen & Joseph Breinl at Wigmore Hall
The combination of mezzo-soprano, viola and piano is a potent one, exploited fully by Brahms but here also realised in settings of the Afrikaan poet Ingrid Jonker. These latter were...
Hallé/Strusinska – Tchaikovsky, Mozart & Saint-Saëns
Ewa Strusinska becomes the Hallé's assistant conductor this September. This well-attended concert was a taster of things to come; the Hallé’s management seems to have struck gold. The Hallé gave...
The Royal Opera – La bohème
This, the 562nd performance of Puccini’s “La bohème” at the Royal Opera House, will probably go down in theatrical history, if only because it may have been the first time...
The University of Texas Wind Ensemble … Circus Maximus
This remarkably interesting programme – which deserved a larger audience than that which was drawn to Cadogan Hall – surely showed this brilliant concert-band at its best.The large brass section...
Tanglewood Music Festival – Mahler Resurrection Symphony/Haitink
What an absolute pleasure it was to be in Lenox, a small town 130 miles west of Boston, which, since 1937, has been the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home. Concerts...
Juan Diego Flórez sings bel canto
A capacity crowd filled the Barbican Hall to witness a friendly between the current number-one note-striker, the Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez, and some upstart Phlegm which threatened to rob...
Mostly Mozart 08 – Garsington Opera’s Così fan tutte
Hot from performances at the open-air Garsington Opera, which is held each summer just outside Oxford, Mozart’s comic-opera “Così fan tutte” came to the Barbican Centre’s “Mostly Mozart” season.Productions are...
Nadia Giliova at Wigmore Hall
Previous London appearances by the very gifted Russian-born pianist, Nadia Giliova, have demonstrated her affinity with, and ability to project, the music of her homeland to a significant degree.This programme,...
An Ocean of Rain
A young prostitute-cum-junkie on the run; a political refugee who runs an orphanage; a disillusioned archaeologist who, together with a doctor and architect trying to stabilise their relationship, arrive to...
Mostly Mozart 08 – Opening Concert
This year’s "Mostly Mozart" festival's opening concert brought an oddly structured programme, which – thanks to the general excellence of the performances – worked rather better in practice than it...
City of London Festival – Mahler 8/Gergiev
There could have been a danger of Mahler’s great choral symphony (sometimes referred to as ‘Symphony of a Thousand’) being swamped in – or by – the great spaces of...
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