(Photo: James Glossop) Any forward-looking opera company surely must play its part in keeping the artform alive. While there must be a place for the staple repertoire, an over-reliance on the likes of Puccini, Verdi, and Mozart not only contains an element of the parasitic but also displays a mentality of unadventurous programming that will ultimately sap the energy from {…}
Guildhall School of Music has announced its autumn 2022 lineup, during which the School will showcase music and drama starting in September and running through December 2022. For this article, only classical vocal/operatic performances are listed. Royal Opera House and Guildhall School Composer-in-Residence Oliver Leith and librettist Matt Copson adapted the 2005 Gus Van Sant film about the last days {…}
(Photo: Marc Brenner) The world of spies, subterfuge, and assassination has long been grist to the operatic mill. Scarpia runs the secret police in “Tosca”; Paolo poisons Boccanegra in Verdi’s Venetian drama of political intrigue; Leonora infiltrates a prison disguised as a man in “Fidelio”. So a contemporary tale like that of dissident and former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned {…}