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The Royal Opera House’s 2023-24 season opens with this first instalment of Barrie Kosky’s new Ring, which will unfold over the next four years. In this same year that London also saw another new Das Rheingold (Richard Jones’s for English National Opera) it’s hard not to draw comparisons between the two, especially as some similarities are important and more …

Royal Opera House – Wagner’s Das Rheingold – with Christopher Maltman, Christopher Purves & Sean Panikkar; directed by Barrie Kosky; conducted by Antonio Pappano Read More »

The Royal Opera House has jettisoned Barrie Kosky’s cabaret-style Carmen in favour of a new production next season. But its basic conception of a staircase with the ensemble slinking over it incessantly reappears now for Adele Thomas’s new Il trovatore (presented jointly with Zurich Opera). Inspired by the ghoulish visions of Hieronymus Bosch and Jan Mandijn (though the unworldly …

The Royal Opera – Verdi’s Il trovatore – Riccardo Massi, Marina Rebeka, Ludovic Tézier & Jamie Barton; directed by Adele Thomas; conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano Read More »

Following her acclaimed production of Peter Grimes for the Royal Opera House, as well as two other Britten operas before that with similarly troubled protagonists, Deborah Warner now turns her attention to Wozzeck, perhaps the seminal and still most modern treatment of the subject of the outsider in the operatic repertoire. Although Georg Büchner’s original play Woyzeck (unfinished at his …

Royal Opera House – Berg’s Wozzeck – with Christian Gerhaher, Anja Kempe & Peter Hoare; directed by Deborah Warner; conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano Read More »

Mathilda du Tillieul McNicol’s new production of this rarity continues Royal Opera’s presentation of various stage-works by Handel that were premiered at its eighteenth-century predecessor at Covent Garden. The 1736-37 season was a busy one for the composer as he tried to shore up the flagging fortunes of his opera company in the face of …

Royal Opera House – Handel’s Arminio – Gabrielė Kupšytė, Sarah Dufresne, Josef Jeongmeen Ahn; directed by Mathilda du Tillieul McNicol; conducted by André Callegaro Read More »

Kaija Saariaho’s keenly awaited new opera was first seen at Aix-en-Provence in 2021 and now receives its debut in the UK. Its concept of an unwelcome guest or visitor at an important family or social event who upturns the world of those present, by calling up the past and causing them to examine their actions …

Royal Opera House – Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence [UK premiere]  Read More »

Although the events of Tosca occur in the middle of June, with the backdrop of Napoleon’s victory at Marengo in 1800, and Jonathan Kent’s production sets it with historical accuracy at that time (on quite a monumental scale) this is nonetheless an unremittingly dark vision of the work. But the three principal characters – taken up at …

Royal Opera House – Jonathan Kent’s production of Puccini’s Tosca – Natalya Romaniw, Freddie De Tommaso & Erwin Schrott; conducted by Daniel Oren Read More »

Handel’s magic opera Alcina (1735) has long been recognised as, in the composer’s musical setting at least, a more complicated work than a mere condemnation of a sorceress’s wanton desires, who uses and then destroys her lovers. Rather, as in many of his operas, he demonstrates a deep sympathy with the emotional inner life of the women, …

Royal Opera House – Handel’s Alcina – Lisette Oropesa, Emily D’Angelo & Mary Bevan; directed by Richard Jones; conducted by Christian Curnyn Read More »

Such is the sensitive nature of the topic at the centre of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia (1945-6, revised 1947) that it is couched more as a worthy historical narrative, than an intensely wrought domestic drama such as Othello. That seems to account for the somewhat outdated tone of some of the libretto with its platitudes and its …

Royal Opera House – Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia – Anne Marie Stanley, Jolyon Loy & Anthony Reed; directed by Oliver Mears; conducted by Corinna Niemeyer Read More »

Those who reach the final curtain of Verdi’s late masterpiece and feel emotionally drained will have witnessed something remarkable. Those unmoved by their encounter may feel emotionally short-changed. Such was my experience after the opening night of Keith Warner’s Otello, now in its second revival. Boris Kudlička’s minimalist sets mostly involve low-budget panels perforated by irregular slits …

Verdi’s Otello @ Royal Opera House Read More »