Don Carlo, Grange Park Opera, June 2026
June 12, 2026A brilliant performance of one of Verdi’s greatest operas, suitably reduced to the size of the GPO stage. Very fine choral singing too, and a cast that did the opera full justice, conveying the huge power that Verdi gave to this story of love, betrayal, and conflict between Church and State — see my review …
Der Rosenkavalier, Garsington, May 2026
June 2, 2026This delightful Rosenkavalier was performed as Strauss intended without the improprieties that modern opera directors so often throw at the staging. The singing was immaculate, and the witty production a delight from beginning to end — see my review in The Article.
Tosca, Glyndebourne, May 2026
May 24, 2026This is the first time Glyndebourne have staged Tosca, and the production by Ted Huffman has given us the “shabby little shocker” a critic in the 1950s once called it. Here is a military dictatorship that kills people in cold blood, and though the ending is different from the one Puccini intended, glorious singing and …
Samson et Delila, Royal Opera, May 2026
May 14, 2026Love and betrayal — an indomitable, strong man undone by a woman — is the essence of the Biblical story, but the opera by Saint-Saëns gives Delilah a motive in which she acts out of religious zeal and patriotic fervour. This conflicts with the fact that she is bribed to betray Samson, but the wonderful …
Peter Grimes, Royal Opera, May 2026
May 7, 2026A first rate performance under the baton of Jakub Hruša, but Deborah Warner’s attempt to update the production to a more modern milieu is only partly successful. It was however elevated by Allan Clayton’s superb performance of Grimes himself. With Bryn Terfel as Captain Balstrode it should all have been more engaging, but the dull …
Flying Dutchman, Welsh National Opera, April 2026
April 18, 2026This was a musical treat under the baton of Tomáš Hanus, who is sadly leaving the WNO after ten years. He fully brought out the energy and inspiration that Wagner put into this work — the first of his extraordinary music dramas — which changed the face of opera. See my review in The Article.
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