Journalist, photographer and social commentator.
¨How can you fail with Tosca? … If you fail with Tosca, then there is something incredibly wrong¨, Sir Bryn Terfel told me recently. The Welsh bass-baritone is currently performing at Royal Opera Covent Garden in Jonathan Kent’s revived staging […]
An intoxicated man dressed in a white suit, wearing a panama hat enters during the ouverture. He announces that ‘Love is like Death’. I’m not sure who he is quoting, but it’s not Nietzsche, who apparently saw the opera at […]
PROM 61 Thomas Ades, Anton Bruckner, Sir Simon Rattle, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Sir Simon Rattle knows Anton Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony like the back of his hand. He had no need for a score when he conducted the work with […]
PROM 56 Sunday 1 September Berliner Philharmoniker Kirill Petrenko Anton Bruckner’s grandiose symphonies are not everybody’s cup of Grüner Veltliner. Even now, almost 150 years since the Austrian composer wrote his Fifth Symphony, there will be people – maybe even […]
For the first time the combined forces of the Royal College of Music and the Sibelius Academy (Finland) amassed on the stage of the Royal Albert Hall. To debut in front of 5000 people must be quite a daunting experience, […]
PROM 56 2024 BRUCKNER Os Justi, Locus iste, Christus factus est, Symphony No.5 in B flat major A visit by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra to the BBC Proms is guaranteed to be one of the festival’s highlights. I think their […]
PROM 31, 11 August, London, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Daniel Barenboim, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra The West-Eastern Divan orchestra was formed a quarter of century ago, when a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was still on the cards. The friendship between the […]
BBC PROM 27, Friday 9 August, 2024 BBC Symphony Orchestra, conductor: Sakari Oramo Kaija Saariaho’s composition Mirage takes its inspiration from the life of Maria Sabina, a shaman and visionary of the Mazatec people in Mexico. She used chants and […]
Seen: June 27 June, Bratislava , Slovak National Theatre Is opera an outdated genre? I urge you to see the Slovak National Theatre’s new production of Madama Butterfly and then argue that old operas have only limited relevance. The plot […]
Prom 14, July 2024 will be recorded in the annals as the Yunchan Lim Prom. With the Royal Albert Hall packed to the acoustic mushroom rafters, the noise welcoming the South Korean pianist sensation was nothing short of tumultuous. In […]
Production seen June 23rd 2023 at The Grange, Northington, Hampshire From afar The Grange at Northington in Hampshire resembles a Grecian temple. But the gently rolling lawns, farmed fields, peaceful lake and trees that surround the impressive neoclassical building couldn’t […]
BBC Proms Saturday 14 August 2021 S.Prokofiev Symphony no.1, J.S.Bach Keyboard Concerto in F minor, BWV 1056, W.A. Mozart Piano concerto no.24, D. Shostakovich Symphony no.9