We like to think that chamber music is an acquired taste but what is chamber music but music played in…
Music
“Life is but a game” is a famous proverb in Russia, which derives from Tchaikovsky’s penultimate opera. It is a…
Admittedly, Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance” isn’t one of my favourite G & S operas, yet Mike…
One hundred years to the day since the death of Russian composer Alexander Scriabin, American pianist Garrick Ohlsson concluded his…
What is not to like about Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro”? Not much. When skillfully executed, the music is Mozart at…
“The Barber of Seville” has been seen somewhere every year since its initial production almost 200 years ago. A light…
Talking to a reviewer colleague during the intermission of Garrick Ohlsson’s all-Scriabin recital at London’s Wigmore Hall, he commented that…
Reader beware. This is not a review for the opera cognoscenti whose weary ears may be seeking newer, less familiar…
Some things never go out of style: basic black, young love, “La Bohème.” Reputed to be the most often performed…
The Curlew River runs fast among the fens, dividing East from West, person from person. So goes the description in…
Instead of a fairy godmother, we have a wise old tutor and the glass slippers are now a pair of…
Why pair Baroque "Dido and Aeneas" with Bartok's 20th century "Bluebeard’s Castle"? According to program notes by director Barrie Kosky…
Take one good-looking couple, she a fantastic soprano and he a very good tenor, add a not-very-threatening villain, a heavy-handed…