London opera isn’t just for the well-heeled. Here are some tips on how to see some top productions without breaking the bank including opera, chamber, classical music and song. Oh, and the best bit – some of it’s free. So, shhh: here’s Londoness’s guide to affordable opera and how to get cheap opera tickets in…
Opera & Classical Music
London Opera and Classical Music reviews: Get the London lowdown on all the latest opera and classical music.
Everybody Can! Opera | Tosca
I knew I had witnessed a little magic during the opening sequence of the ENO’S Porgy and Bess last year. Clara (soprano Nadine Benjamin) was singing one of opera’s favourite arias, Summertime, to her babe in arms, and we were spellbound from the get-go. Last Friday, she commandeered the pulpit of St James’s Church Piccadilly…
Porgy and Bess at the ENO | Review
London, why on earth did it take your opera houses so long to stage Porgy and Bess? Thank goodness the English National Opera has corrected this cultural misdemeanour by staging the opera’s first major outing since the 1980s. It’s a sensory feast all round, perfect for opera lovers and novices as well as audiences of…
Oxford Lieder Festival 2018
It was a full house on Friday night at the opening of the Oxford Lieder Festival, the UK’s largest art song festival. And to mark a nation gone bonkers with Brexit, the organisers chose an apt theme: The Grand Tour, A European Journey in Song. Talk about sticking a chorus of fingers up at the…
The Skating Rink at Garsington Opera
I always approach contemporary opera with a dose of trepidation. Often inaccessible and veiled in discordant notes, it’s easy to veer in the direction of more traditional composition. But as I headed back to Garsington Opera in Wormsley earlier this week, I was pleasantly surprised and somewhat bowled over by its latest offering, The Skating…
Le Nozze di Garsington Opera
The French for twilight is crépuscule, a word which conjures up that gleaming, twinkling time of day which is neither light nor dark, when the Goddess Nyx starts her magic dance. And Garsington Opera puts on a witching hour like no other with the thrilling sound of music and song from its pastoral outpost in…
Review: Satyagraha at the ENO
I would like some of what Philip Glass is on, please. I would like to crawl into his brain for a few hours and see what makes him tick. In the ENO’s production of Satyagraha, the American composer’s operatic masterpiece has been placed in the capable hands of director Phelim McDermott and designer Julian Crouch…
A Midsummer Dream: A day out at Garsington Opera
The Chiltern hills in Wormsley are alive with the sound of music. This Buckinghamshire haven, where Garsington Opera has its home, is England at its most seductive, the sort of place where pastoral dreams are made. And the vocal fireworks that burst from Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia last Thursday were spectacular as well. Yes,…