Benjamin Appl, Helen Charlston, Roderick Williams, & Lotte Betts-Dean Among Performers in Oxford International Song Festival 2025

The Oxford International Song Festival has announced its line up for 2025. This article only features classical vocal concerts. Baritone Benjamin Appl and pianist Sholto Kynoch open the festival with a concert highlighting the works of Franz Schubert. Performance Date: October 10, 2025 Baritone Benjamin Appl and pianist Sholto Kynoch perform a small selection of songs in “Song Sofa.” This {…}

Jul 21, 2021

Grange Park Opera 2021 Review: The Life & Death of Alexander Litvinenko

(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 {…}

Mar 4, 2020

English Touring Opera 2020 Review: Così fan tutte

(Image Source: Official website) The great critic Edward Said saw Mozart and Da Ponte’s “Così fan tutte” as a work of irreconcilable contradictions: astonishingly tender in its explorations of longing, fear, and regret, yet also strangely cold and unredeemed; a world of libertinage and manipulation that burns forward without any clear moral purpose. The frivolity of its scenario is powerfully {…}

May 7, 2019

Oxford Lieder Festival Previews New Season

The 18th Oxford Lieder Festival has announced its will focus on the world of storytelling and fairy tales, from Norse legend to the Brothers Grimm. The new season will showcase leading artists including Louise Alder, Ilker Arcayürek, Benjamin Appl, Nikolay Borchev, Katherine Broderick, Stéphane Degout, Tara Erraught, Marcus Farnsworth, Maria Forsström, James Gilchrist, Ben Johnson, Sophie Karthaüser, Stephan Loges, Christoph {…}