dvd review

5 min read 2022-05-24 20:40:36

Ambitious Parsifal

Wagner’s Parsifal both attracts and repels. It has gorgeous music but a problematic plot that, on the surface, is a weird mash up of Christian

5 min read 2022-05-18 20:08:11

The basic premise of Kasper Holten’s production of Mozart’s Idomeneo, recorded at the Vienna State Opera in 2019, seems to be that Idomeneo and

3 min read 2022-05-12 21:38:41

Janáček’s Jenůfa was staged and recorded at the Staatsoper unter den Linden in 2021 under COVID conditions. There’s no audience and the

2 min read 2022-05-04 19:18:10

Not so long ago I reviewed a production of Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel and described it as “so bonkers that I hardly know how to describe

4 min read 2022-04-18 05:57:55

Stanisław Moniuszko’s Halka is sometimes regarded as Poland’s national opera. It’s one of those mid 19th century works that tries to create

4 min read 2022-04-15 01:29:53

I’m really not sure what to make of the recent recording of Giodarno’s Siberia made at the Maggi Musicale Fiorentino in 2021. It’s certainly

5 min read 2022-04-07 20:15:47

Handel’s Saul gets another “fully staged” treatment in this recording of a Claus Guth production at the Theater an der Wien in 2021.

4 min read 2022-03-29 23:32:29

The 2021 recording of Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann from the Staatsoper Hamburg is fairly straightforward but it’s visually interesting and

5 min read 2022-03-22 22:00:18

The more I see of Tobias Kratzer’s work the more impressed I get. Here we look at his 2019 production of Wagner’s Tannhäuser at Bayreuth.

3 min read 2022-03-14 20:23:19

Well it took me a while to get hold of a copy of the third of the Harnoncourt Mozart/da Ponte operas. It is, of course, Così fan tutte and like

2 min read 2022-03-03 21:17:14

It’s becoming a bit of a habit. The Royal Opera has released a video recording of the 2019 revival of Kaspar Holten’s 2014 production of Don

3 min read 2022-02-25 23:23:35

There’s been a lot of talk recently about whether or not it’s legit to change text, music or dramaturgy for problem operas like Madama

3 min read 2022-02-20 03:37:37

There’s a certain logic in Christof Loy following up his 2019 production of Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with

5 min read 2022-02-04 22:32:37

Discovering a new opera that’s really good is one of life’s small pleasures and my latest is Benet Casablanca’s L’enigma di Lea. It’s a

4 min read 2022-01-03 19:57:40

Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville’s Titon et l’Aurore is another member of that rather long list of operas that were well received in their