Returning to David McVicar’s 2015 Vienna Tristan which showcased singers willing to stand and deliver

AustriaAustria Wagner, Tristan und Isolde: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of Vienna State Opera / Peter Schneider (conductor). 18.1.2015 performance and streamed by Wiener Staatsoper Live at Home and reviewed on 28.5.2020. (JPr)

Vienna State Opera’s Tristan und Isolde

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Vale of Glamorgan Festival 2020 online during lockdown

United KingdomUnited Kingdom Vale of Glamorgan Festival 2020

Huw WATKINS – Invention [Huw Watkins (piano); Suite for harp Anne Denholm (harp)] CLICK HERE

John Luther ADAMS – Two dances [Anne Denholm (harp)]; The dream of the hermit thrush; The dream of the canyon wren [George Barton (percussion), Siwan Rhys (piano)] CLICK HERE

Mark BOWDEN – for Michael Harrison [Alice Neary (cello), David Adams (piano)]; Four memos: Exactitude [David Adams (violin), Robin Green (piano)]
David John ROCHE – Tremolo Study 4 [David John Roche (guitar)]
Maja PALSER – A cry [Robin Green (piano)]
Mared EMLYN – Perlau yn y glaw; [Anne Denholm (harp)]
Steph POWER – Dreamtides [Matthew Jones (violin), Annabel Thwaite (piano)]
CLICK HERE

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In Memoriam Sir Peter Jonas – an April Monday Concert of the Bavarian State Opera 

GermanyGermany Fourth Concert – In Memoriam Sir Peter Jonas: Elsa Benoit (soprano), Donald Wages (piano), Münchner Klavier Trio, Jonas Kaufmann (tenor), Helmut Deutsch (piano), Live streaming from the Bavarian State Opera, Munich, on 27.4.2020. (MMB)

Jonas Kaufmann (tenor) & Helmut Deutsch (piano) (c) Bayerische Staatsoper

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Gillian Anderson’s Blanche disappoints as the object of masculine desire in the Young Vic’s replayed 2014 Streetcar

United KingdomUnited Kingdom National Theatre at Home – Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire: filmed live on stage at the Young Vic on 16.9.2014 and reviewed on 25.5.2020 (JPr)

Gillian Anderson (Blanche) & Ben Foster (Stanley) (c) Johan Persson

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Glyndebourne’s 2012 Marriage of Figaro was exceptional entertainment and kicked off Open House 2020

United KingdomUnited Kingdom Glyndebourne Open House – Mozart, Le nozze di Figaro: Soloists, Glyndebourne Chorus and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment / Robin Ticciati (conductor). Glyndebourne Festival Opera performance 17.8.2012 and streamed and reviewed on 24.5.2020. (MMB)

Glyndebourne Festival Opera’s 2012 Le nozze di Figaro (c) Alastair Muir

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The Met’s 2007 Il barbiere di Siviglia proves an escape from our current reality and a couple of hours of bliss

United StatesUnited States Rossini, Il barbiere di Siviglia: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera, New York / Maurizio Benini (conductor). Performance of 24.3.2007 and reviewed as a Nightly Met Opera Stream (MM-B)

Peter Mattei (Figaro), Joyce DiDonato (Rosina), & Juan Diego Flórez (Count Almaviva) © Ken Howard/Met Opera

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‘Mein lieber Schwan’: can a 1986 Met Lohengrin teach us anything 34 years later?

United StatesUnited States Wagner, Lohengrin: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera, New York / James Levine (conductor). 10.1.1986 performance from the Metropolitan Opera House reviewed as a Nightly Met Opera Stream on 20.5.2020. (JPr)

Peter Hofmann (Lohengrin), John Macurdy (Henry) & Éva Marton (Elsa)

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Educating Rita, says who?

The OED on education refers an inquirer through a Middle English (ME) root of educe meaning to bring out or develop (something latent or potential): very much Willy Russell’s territory in his melodramatic farce of 1980 at the Royal Shakespeare Company;  which in turn became an even more successful (1983) film of the same name. whose stage version also had the same leading actors as the film. But that is only half the story.

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