Category Archives: going to operas

roundup of 2023

So we get to the end of 2023, and if it wasn’t one of the most vintage years it had some remarkable and unexpected highlights. And it included the 20th anniversary of this blog, which I’m afraid passed without comment … Continue reading

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Poulenc through glass

I didn’t plan my Proms season, and my decision to go to the Glyndebourne Prom performance of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites was a spontaneous one made earlier that day. This opera (did any have a more offputting title?) is one … Continue reading

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under the balcony

I made my first post-pandemic excursion to the Royal Opera House to the opening night of Deborah Warner’s new production of Wozzeck. I shan’t comment further on the uniformly excellent performances – you can read more by following the links … Continue reading

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Review of the year: 2022

This was naturally enough a great improvement on the two previous years. My musical life (like my non-musical one) contained many events postponed from 2020 and 2021, and so became very busy. I’ve only done half a dozen overseas choir … Continue reading

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E.M.

WNO tends not to bring its (frequent) Janáček stagings to Bristol so we braved the ‘Newport bottleneck’ on the M4 to catch their production of The Makropulos Affair at the Wales Millennium Centre. Another inter-war femme fatale who goes by … Continue reading

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no raffle at Onegin

Almost the last musical event I attended in before lockdown was a Bath Opera performance, and two years on it was time for another, Eugene Onegin. I’ve been to three performances of this – one a few years ago at … Continue reading

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Fidelio before the curtain fell

By early March tickets were beginning to appear for events that had originally sold out, as people became anxious about the risk of contagion. One such ticket was a good (and hence expensive) one for Fidelio at the Royal Opera … Continue reading

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the animals get it right

I once heard this as a comment on The Cunning Little Vixen, which I went to see at the Wales Millennium Centre. (For some reason Welsh National Opera thinks that Bristol audiences can’t handle Janáček and don’t bring their productions … Continue reading

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no more anachronistic absinthe

I haven’t been to the Royal Opera for a while, and took the opportunity to break my return journey from Cambridge to catch the opening night of the revival of their production of Andrea Chénier. The closing days of the … Continue reading

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Jenůfa at Hayesfield

Bath Opera have found a new venue; the Roper Theatre at Hayesfield School, which I visited a couple of years ago (when it was brand new) to see my son’s final-year primary school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We … Continue reading

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