L'Orfeo review – magical and memorable Monteverdi
Colston Hall, BristolUnder John Eliot Gardiner and his exceptional group of musicians, every element in Monteverdi’s 1607 music drama was perfectly scaled and projectedThis year, there’s no shortage of...
View ArticleIl Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria review – Monteverdi's greatness shines
The Grange festival, Northington, HampshireAn over-fussy production sometimes rides roughshod over the opera’s subtleties, but a clutch of superb performances carry the eveningIl Ritorno d’Ulisse in...
View ArticleThe top classical, world, folk and jazz of summer 2017
Comedy choirs, desert rock, a trip to the moon and a musical tour of Hull are the standout sounds of the season. Plus Django Bates jazzes up Sgt PepperSummer arts preview 2017: Pop | Theatre | Film |...
View ArticleMonteverdi's Vespers/Israel in Egypt review – choral majesty, colour, and a...
Royal Albert Hall, LondonTwo proms this week, led by Raphaël Pichon and William Christie, featured unconventional and captivating performances of Monteverdi and Handel’s great choral worksSometimes the...
View ArticleMonteverdi: Vespers 1610 CD review – fresh and clear
Dunedin Consort/Butt(Linn)Having placed Bach’s St John Passion in its liturgical context for recent performances, John Butt’s excellent Dunedin Consort now do the reverse with Monteverdi’s publication...
View ArticleThe Guardian view on opera: still powerful, still relevant | Editorial
Opera, an artform that exemplifies Europe’s cultural interconnectedness, should not be written off as simply elitistThe V&A’s new exhibition, the first to be shown in its elegant, recently...
View ArticleBrecon Baroque festival review – vibrant Vivaldi and mesmerising Monteverdi
Brecon cathedral/Theatr BrycheiniogI Fagiolini delivered a gutsy, refined rendering of Monteverdi’s Other Vespers and the Brecon Baroque gave the Four Seasons thrilling new lifeWith characteristic...
View ArticleMonteverdi: Selva Morale e Spirituale CD review – piercing, nimble confessionals
Balthasar Neumann Choir and Ensemble/Heras-Casado(Harmonia Mundi)The name of this 1640 collection means “moral and spiritual forest” and it is Monteverdi in the most exploratory mood – the culmination...
View ArticleHouse of Monteverdi review – new music and MP3s take on the madrigal challenge
Shoreditch Church, LondonWork from Monteverdi’s magnificent Eighth Book of Madrigals was interwoven with new pieces inspired by it in this fascinating Spitalfields festival event‘This year, we have...
View ArticleThe top 10 classical shows of 2017
A magisterial Monteverdi cycle, Oliver Knussen’s adventures in haiku – and a hero’s return for Simon Rattle. Our critic picks his highlightsMark Elder and the Hallé have established a tradition of...
View ArticleDebussy abounds, Ulysses returns and Rattle debuts: the best classical music...
Monteverdi’s masterwork is given new life, two opera titans take on Verdi, and the London Sinfonietta launches a gender-fluid game showWith the Linbury Studio likely to be out of commission for another...
View ArticlePassion review – Pascal Dusapin's haunting retelling of the Orpheus legend
The Anvil, BasingstokeA central pair give stunningly emotional turns in this hypnotic and erotically charged reworking of Monteverdi’s operasThe first of Pascal Dusapin’s operas to be performed in the...
View ArticleOAE/Curnyn review – startling and subtle Strozzi opens adventurous celebration
Kings Place, LondonA revelatory performance of the madrigals of 17th-century composer Barbara Strozzi was a fine beginning for Kings Place’s year-long festival ‘The first work that I, as a woman, all...
View ArticleRaymond Leppard obituary
Conductor whose vivid realisations of operas by Monteverdi and Cavalli brought them new audiencesThe conductor and harpsichordist Raymond Leppard, who has died aged 92, did much to attract audiences to...
View ArticleMonteverdi: L'Orfeo review | Andrew Clements's classical album of the week
Emiliano Gonzalez Toro/I Gemelli(Naïve, two discs)The tenor sings the title role and also conducts in this new recording that interest and spark but eccentricities; instrumentalists I Gemelli are very...
View ArticleFrom Vivaldi to Vaughan Williams: more musical voices who have changed our world
Over the past few months, our Know the Score series introduced 20 great composers. But what of the many we couldn’t write about? Martin Kettle suggests some other names whose music is well worth...
View ArticleThe Return of Ulysses review – tenderness and thuggery plus a touch of the...
Longborough festival opera, Moreton-in-MarshA terrific cast, led by Tom Randle, emphasise the violence in this version of the Monteverdi opera, transposed to a traumatised modern-day...
View ArticleDunedin Consort review – Monteverdi up close and personal
St Mary’s Parish Church, HaddingtonThe secular side of the composer’s output was the focus of this imaginative and vivid festival programmeThe Dunedin Consort gave a thrilling, visceral performance of...
View ArticleL’Arpeggiata/Pluhar review – theatrical and urgent Monteverdi Vespers
Barbican, LondonThe period instrument group under Christina Pluhar brought a verve and clarity to this ambiguous work that reminded us of its closeness to Monteverdi’s early operatic masterpiecesIt...
View ArticleA rebel with a cause: Shobana Jeyasingh on how she breathed new life into...
It was the energy of the baroque gem Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda that first drew choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh, but its enigmatic heroine became an obsession. She explains why she has...
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