Semele Soyoon Koo 30/08/2025Handel’s Semele (1744) was met with controversy at its premiere for presenting secular opera in the guise of sacred oratorio....
Sense & Sensibility. The Musical Julie Peakman 20/08/2025Wow it’s an opera! The opening song jolts our attention as players start to sing ‘Its Society’. The title of...
Le Nozze di Figaro Marc Berman 01/07/2025Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro is the quintessential Glyndebourne opera. It opened the house in 1934 and had been performed...
The Merry Widow Owen Davies 24/06/2025This wonderful bit of nonsense was first performed in Austria just before Christmas 1905. It is a Viennese operetta with...
Madama Butterfly Owen Davies 12/06/2025This opera may be one of Puccini’s finest musically but the story is centred on another of his doomed heroines...
La Traviata Owen Davies 07/06/2025This opera is Verdi’s version of the story of Marguerite Gautier, the “fallen woman” of the title of Dumas’ novelised...
Ermione Josi Steinfeld 30/08/2024Ermione is the sixth of nine operas Rossini composed for the San Carlo in Naples and one of the biggest...
The Valkyrie (Die Walküre) Miho Uchida 26/08/2024Valentin Schwarz’s production of The Ring of the Nibelung has returned to the Bayreuth Festival this year. As predicted, there...
Bianca e Falliero (Bianca and Falliero) Josi Steinfeld 23/08/2024Bianca and Falliero, Rossini’s 30th opera and the fourth composed in 1819, had an impressive initial run of 39 performances—the...
La Rondine (The Swallow) Josi Steinfeld 05/08/2024The Gattières Opus Opera Festival in a small hillside village behind Nice has been a well-kept secret for 34 years!...
