News Salzburg Festival

Holst: Sāvitri - Kathryn Rudge & Pagrav Dance in rehearsal - Britten Sinfonia (Photo Milly March) Grace Williams: Sea Sketches, Britten: Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Holst: Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, Sāvitri; Kathryn Rudge, Anthony Gregory, Ross Ramgobin, Kuljit Bhamra, John Parricelli, Jacqueline Shave, Pagrav Dance Company, Urja Desai Thakore, Britten Sinfonia Voice, Britten Sinfonia, Eamonn Dougan, Mark Elder; Barbican Centre A wonderfully daring evening, placing Holst's idiosyncratic operatic masterpiece at the centre of an evening that mined the work's English and Anglo-Indian themes. Of Gustav Holst's eight operas, only one Sāvitri retains anything like a hold on the repertoire. I first saw it in 1978 when Janet Baker sang the title role with Scottish Opera in a triple bill with Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and a new opera by Edward Harper. This points to the problem with Sāvitri, like Rider's to the Sea by his friend Ralph Vaughan Williams both operas are difficult […]

Alcina and Arminio to Kurt Cobain and Kaija Saariaho to Werther and Wozzeck, the Royal Opera House's new season 

The Royal Opera has announced plans for its 2022/23 season, with 11 new productions split between the main stage and the Linbury. New main stage productions will be Handel's Alcina, Dvorak's Rusalka, Verdi's Aida and Il trovatore, Berg's Wozzeck and the UK premiere of Kaija Saariaho's Innocence. Whilst the Linbury programme includes Handel's Arminio with cast and creative team from the Jette Parker Young Artists, Britten's Rape of Lucretia as a collaboration between the Jette Parker Young Artists and the Britten Pears Young Artists Programme. Also at the Linbury, Oliver Leith's Last Days based on the Gus Van Sant film (loosely based on the final days of Kurt Cobain), Brian Irvine's Least Like the Other from Irish National Opera. The operas for main stage new productions are a brave (or foolhardy) selection, as previous productions have had a strange whiff of the elephants' graveyard about them, as many of the previous production at Covent Garden failed to […]

Big Boxes: Another Worthy Buchbinder Beethoven Sonata Cycle 

In August 2014 the 68-year-old Rudolf Buchbinder performed all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas at the Salzburg Festival over the course of seven recitals, later issued on home video. Deutsche Grammophon now releases the audio soundtracks on CD at budget price. One should note that DG’s sequential numeric ordering of the sonatas does not correspond to […]

Wozzeck, Paris Opéra, 13 March 2022 

Opéra Bastille Images: Agathe Poupeney / OnP Wozzeck – Johan Reuter Drum Major – John Daszak Andres – Tansel Akzeybek Captain – Gerhard Siegel Doctor – Falk Struckmann First Apprentice – Mikhail Timoshenko Second Apprentice – Tobias Westman Fool – Heinz Göhrig Marie – Eva-Maria Westbroek Margret – Marie-Andrée Bouchard-Lesieur Soldier – Vincent Morell Actors – Nathalie Baunaure, Fitzgerald Berthon, Andrea Fabi, Manon LheureuxWilliam Kentridge (director)Luc De Wit (co-director)Sabine Theunissen (set designs)Greta Goiris (costumes)Catherine Meyburgh (video)Urs Schönebaum (lighting)Kim Gunning (video operator)   Maîtrise des-Hauts-de Seins/Children’s Chorus of the Opéra national de Paris (chorus master: Gaël Darchen), Chorus of the Opéra national de Paris (chorus master: Ching-Lien Wu) Orchestra of the Opéra national de ParisSusanna Mälkki (conductor)   Four-and-a-halfyears ago, I saw William Kentridge’s then new Wozzeck at the Salzburg Festival. I found myself somewhat nonplussed by its more distanced, alienating aspects, thinking them better […]