WNO
All’s well that ends well
Bernstein’s Candide is the operetta that ought to work, but never quite does. Voltaire’s featherlight cakewalk through human misery, set…
Losing the plot
Leos Janacek disliked long operas, and the first act of The Makropulos Affair is a masterclass in how to set…
A mischievous, daring production that produces the goods: Iolanthe reviewed
‘Welcome to our hearts again, Iolanthe!’ sings the fairy chorus in Gilbert and Sullivan’s fantasy-satire, and during this exuberant new…
Excess baggage
Near the end of Elena Langer’s new opera Figaro Gets a Divorce, as the Almaviva household — now emigrés in…
Has there ever been a better time to be a lover of Baroque opera?
Time was when early music was a 6 p.m. concert, Baroque began with Bach and ended with Corelli’s Christmas Concerto,…
All roads lead to Callas
Bellini belongs to that category of not-quite-great operatic composers whose works are also very difficult to perform adequately, and don’t…
Golden hearted
Puccini’s La fanciulla del West is, one suspects, one of those works that modern audiences struggle to keep a straight…
