Reviews

Bryn Terfel: Bad Boys, Royal Festival Hall, London

Bryn Terfel arrived in the capital armed with countless sneers and as many ways to make mischief. His latest album, Bad Boys – a comprehensive gallery of operatic rogues and villains – was now a tour, and there was a big, glossy, souvenir programme to prove it.

Inside Reviews

Duke Bluebeard's Castle, Coliseum, London
re-rite, Bargehouse, London

Sunday, 15 November 2009

For offences against women, this director outdoes the villain himself

Album: Schubert, Die Schone Mullerin, (Orchid Classics)

Sunday, 15 November 2009

James Gilchrist and Anna Tilbrook’s reading of Schubert’s earlier song cycle is more conventional than Padmore and Lewis’s Winterreise.

Album: Schubert, Winterreise, (Harmonia Mundi)

Sunday, 15 November 2009

There is an interesting reversal of roles in the first release of Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis’s series of Schubert song cycles for HM.

Album: Alberto Veronesi, Placido Domingo, Violeta Urmana, Puccini Ritrovato, (Deutsche Grammophon) (Rated 3/ 5 )

Friday, 13 November 2009

Echoing the recent trend for classical music played with authentic period instrumentation, Alberto Veronesi here presents a series of Puccini arias and orchestral pieces according to the original versions premiered by the composer.

Album: Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe Suite No 2, (EMI Classics) (Rated 4/ 5 )

Friday, 13 November 2009

The young French-Canadian conductor Yannick N�zet-S�guin proves particularly adept here at extracting the maximum impact from a series of Ravel waltzes and "miniatures", most notably the second suite from Daphnis et Chlo�.

Album: Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Gershwin: Porgy & Bess, (RCA Red Seal) (Rated 4/ 5 )

Friday, 13 November 2009

Gershwin's celebrated "folk opera" has, through copious truncation, come to be regarded more as a musical than an opera – an attitude which Nikolaus Harnoncourt is at pains to redress in this vast 3CD presentation done with a vibrantly expressive cast led by Jonathan Lemalu and Isabelle Kabatu in the title roles.

Bryn Terfel: 'Bad Boys', Royal Festival Hall (Rated 4/ 5 )

Thursday, 12 November 2009

Bryn Terfel arrived in the capital armed with countless sneers and as many ways to make mischief. His latest album Bad Boys – a comprehensive gallery of operatic rogues and villains – was now a tour, and there was a big, glossy, souvenir programme to prove it.

Angela Gheorghiu/Marius Manea/Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Festival Hall (Rated 2/ 5 )

Wednesday, 11 November 2009

For anyone wondering what on earth the Overture to Leonard Bernstein's Candide was doing at the start of this bizarre, rag-bag of an evening (there seemed to be no rhyme or reason for its presence) might I suggest that the inference may have been that "in the best of all possible worlds" (to quote Voltaire) Angela Gheorghiu would have been singing more than two (yes, two) arias in the official programme with two more tired old chestnuts added as encores.

Les Arts Florissants, Union Chapel, Islington (Rated 5/ 5 )

Monday, 9 November 2009

Of all the ensembles celebrating an anniversary this year, William Christie and Les Arts Florissants - now toasting three decades of ground-breaking experiment - have most reason to congratulate themselves. Thirty years ago, when they embarked on their still-ongoing project to bring French Baroque music into focus, they were tilling virgin territory; if it’s now all flowers and fruit trees, that’s largely thanks to them. Moving on from Charpentier (who gave them their name) to Purcell, Handel, and Haydn, they have continued their quest: hats off to the Barbican, which - in collaboration with the Salle Pleyel and the Cite de la Musique - has commissioned their lap of honour this autumn.