George Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers (Les Pȇcheurs de Perles) is a work of such notorious boredom that is it easy to understand the decision of the Berlin Staatsoper (still in its temporary home in the Schiller Theater) to spice it
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The hottest day in the United Kingdom in nearly 30 years. The day of the Queen’s Speech. And the hottest ticket in town was for opening night of the Royal Opera House’s new production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello, featuring German
Performance Anxiety – for many musicians and performers it’s the fear which cannot, must not, speak its name, and together with injury and illness, it’s a major taboo. We don’t discuss anxiety because we’re not supposed to feel it. As
In his farewell production after a six year tenure as Director of Opera at Covent Garden, Kasper Holten managed a veritable hat trick. He turned Wagner’s notoriously overlong opera (at nearly five hours it is possibly the longest single opera)
Consider; opera based on text of XIX century with music of the same period produced and sang in Israel, a country reeling in inner battles; the ultra religious (haredim) against the institutions, the mitnahalim (settlers) against everybody, the right and
Successfully performing Siegfried, the third and least accessible opera of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle, cemented the growing reputation of the Hong Kong Philharmonic for this demanding material. The orchestra was in outstanding shape, comfortably cruising between the lyrically heart-wrenching passages
The Peter Stein production of Verdi’s Don Carlo from the 2013 Salzburg Festival finally debuted this January at Teatro alla Scala of Milan. Somewhat controversially acquired by Alexander Pereira, formerly Artistic Director of Salzburg and now Sovrintendente of La Scala,
Nicholas Canellakis makes his Hong Kong debut this month, performing Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brett Dean. Ahead of his first concert, I catch up with him and learn about his childhood, teaching and the interplay of music and acting in his