Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operettas have always been an acquired taste and the ENO has occasionally fallen into the trap of hamming up the comedy or trying to appeal to …
Donizetti’s Elisir d’Amore is in many ways the most genuinely funny of all comic operas but changing its setting from rural Italy to Second World War England loses some of …
When Henry James wrote his creepy ghost story The Turn of the Screw in 1898, it reflected the passion of its time for death and communicating with the afterlife, yet …
There are essentially three types of opera director: those who stick as faithfully as possible to the original composer’s and librettist’s intentions; those who add a few touches of their …
After starting the year with atonal music and the grim story of The Handmaid’s Tale, the English National Opera has followed it up with the exact opposite. Rossini’s Barber of Seville is pure fun …
When I first saw this adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s highly acclaimed novel two years ago, I could admire the appropriate clunkiness of Danish composer Poul Ruders’ music and the excellence …