Bizet’s Carmen has good claims to be the most popular and most often produced of all operas, which makes it difficult for a director to come up with anything both new and acceptable but Damiano Michieletto has achieved an intriguing balance between traditional ideas and new insights in the new Royal Opera House production at … Read more
A stunning performance from Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian in the title role made an outstanding impression at the opening night of Madama Butterfly at the Royal Opera House. I have lost count of the number of times I have seen this tale of a young Japanese girl and the callous American naval lieutenant who weds … Read more
Richard Wagner was still in his late-20s when he achieved his first great operatic hit with The Flying Dutchman, but both the plot and the music already showed the grandeur, the ambition and the power he was to achieve in his later highly-acclaimed works. The opera is based on a legend of a ghost ship, … Read more
