SINCE 1999 A LIVE REVIEW SITE FOR OPERA, BALLET, CONCERTS, BROADCASTS, AND THEATRE
United Kingdom Handel, Messiah: Sophie Bevan (soprano), Iestyn Davies (countertenor), Allan Clayton (tenor), Roderick Williams (baritone) , Britten Sinfonia Voices (director: Eamonn Dougan) Britten Sinfonia Orchestra (violin/director: Jacqueline Shave), Barbican Hall, London 19.12.2018. (CSa)
United Kingdom Jánaček: Thomas Adès (Piano), Wigmore Hall, London, 9.12.2018. (CSa)
United States Mike Birbiglia’s The New One: Cort Theatre, New York. 19.11.2018. (CSa)
United States Bizet, Carmen: Soloists, Dancers, Chorus and Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera / Omer Meir Wellber (Conductor) Metropolitan Opera, New York, 30.10.2018. (CSa)
United Kingdom Florian Zeller, The Height of the Storm (translated by Christopher Hampton): Wyndham’s Theatre, London. 7.10.2018. (CSa)
United Kingdom Schubert: Ian Bostridge (tenor), Thomas Adès (piano), Wigmore Hall, London, 17.9.2018. (CSa)
United States Tanglewood [5] – Mozart Piano Concertos: Lang Lang, Paul Lewis, Garrick Ohlsson (CSa)
Holding the Key: Nicholas Phan talks to Christopher Sallon
‘Music is for everybody, but the artist, alone, holds the key’ declares Nicholas Phan, one of the USA’s most accomplished lyric tenors. In a blog recorded in 2010, some eight years before our July interview in Tanglewood, he stood calmly before the camera and provided an ‘insider’s’ glimpse, as he prepared for his Carnegie Hall debut recital with accompanist Myra Huang. With a maturity and self-assurance which belied his years – he was then just 31 years old – he spoke of the need to take risks and proceeded to provide a key to his programme of songs by Benjamin Britten. Phan’s performance that night, particularly his account of Britten’s Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, and the song cycle Winter Words, a setting of Thomas Hardy poems, garnered rave reviews, as did his Winter Words CD, released soon thereafter.