SINCE 1999 A LIVE REVIEW SITE FOR OPERA, BALLET, CONCERTS, THEATRE , BROADCASTS AND FILMS
The master list of news, features and interviews
Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake discuss Schubert’s Winterreise and their decades-long musical partnership
Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake bring their renowned interpretation of Schubert’s Winterreise to New York’s Kaufmann Concert Hall at 92NY on 5 March 2025. Their North American tour takes them to Montreal, Boston and Baltimore, but only New York audiences will experience their masterful performance of Schubert’s great song cycle.
Brentwood School proudly announces the launch of the First Brentwood International Music Competition, a landmark initiative designed to attract and celebrate the world’s most talented young musicians. This exciting new venture marks a significant milestone for the school’s Specialist Music Programme, which has already demonstrated exceptional promise in its inaugural term.
From friendship to music: Stephen Williamson premieres Christopher Theofanidis’s clarinet concerto at the CSO
On a summer day in 2022, Stephen Williamson stood outside with his clarinet in Aspen, Colorado. Surrounded by an endless blue sky, mountains and the sun, Williamson – the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s principal clarinetist – worked through intricate passages of a new concerto. Its composer, Christopher Theofanidis, was there with Williamson, shaping the music in real time. ‘Playing it outside in the fresh air, with the mountains around us, brought a whole new dimension to the sound’, Williamson recalls.
After almost three years of anticipation – due in part to an unexpected health setback – Williamson is finally set to premiere the concerto, Indigo Heaven, which was written specifically for him.
The 77th edition of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence from 4 – 21 July 2025
The metamorphosis of Calisto, the reincarnation of Buddha, the transformation of Louise, the protean Don Giovanni… The focus of the 2025 edition of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (for more information click here) is clearly on the inexorable mutability of all things and the perpetual reinvention of the self. ‘There is nothing in the whole world which is permanent. Everything flows onward; all things are brought into being with a changing nature’ says Ovid in his Metamorphoses; and this is reflected in Cavalli’s La Calisto, which depicts a fascinating continuum between nature, mankind and the gods.
Opera Holland Park’s 2025 Season
New productions of two dark Gothic fantasies. The return of an explosive contemporary classic. Sentiment and satire in two co-productions with Scottish Opera and D’Oyly Carte. A succession of significant role and house debuts, a recital series exploring the connections between opera and song, and a revival of a much-loved tragedy of first and last love.
National Theatre Live – Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest: Filmed (directed by Matthew Amos) in London’s Lyttleton Theatre. (JPr)
Chelsea Opera Group present Édouard Lalo’s Le Roi d’Ys, a concert performance in French at the Cadogan Hall, London on Sunday 30 March 6.30pm
