Another evening, another Tosca…
Music critic, editor, programme note writer. Happy to be ambushed by cake. Best when caffeinated. https://canzonetta.substack.com/
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Another evening, another Tosca…
Donning my skull mask this evening and heading for Vespers: a second revival for Stefan Herheim's staging of Verdi's Sicilian Vespers
One for Rossini fans today... Par🇮🇹le n°1352 4/6 pietroppeter.github.io/wordle-it/
Wordle 1,551 2/6 😁 ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
A few thoughts on Alexei Ratmansky’s Pictures at an Exhibition which I caught at the weekend… canzonetta.substack.com/p/alexei-rat...
Hugely enjoying Dutch National Opera’s new Boris Godunov thanks to Mark Pullinger’s Gramophone review. What a fabulous resource is operavision.eu @larkingrumple.bsky.social #Opera operavision.eu/performance/...
I sometimes wonder what sort of negotiation goes on between singers and conductors, but there are times when I just want to yell at the pit, "Come on, at least *try* and play through..."
I nearly mentioned her sensible slacks and trench coat!
It's five stars from me for @welshnatopera.bsky.social’s "try before you buy” Tosca, reviewed for @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/culture/clas...
Isn’t it good!
My third in the last nine days… and another to come next weekend!
Cardiff-bound for another Tosca, Welsh National Opera’s season opener!
One of my favourite musical works inspired by Dante Alighieri (died OTD 1321) is Rachmaninov's Francesca da Rimini: bachtrack.com/feature-rach...
“There's no handbrake, no ‘lighter’ version of me.” Super interview with the fabulous young Austrian mezzo Patricia Nolz: bachtrack.com/interview-pa...
Nuns on the run! Defiant nuns flee care home for their abandoned convent in the Alps www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Alexei Ratmansky’s Pictures at an Exhibition delivers an uplifting close to London City Ballet’s excellent programme at @sadlerswells.bsky.social
A thrusting Daphnis et Chloé brings the BBC Proms Ravel celebrations to a climax bachtrack.com/review-wilso...
Ratmansky Time! 🤩
Hoping to see this in Bergamo at the Donizetti Festival.
“Quanto? Il prezzo?” Is Oliver Mears' new Tosca a keeper? How was Anna Netrebko on her return to Covent Garden? My Opera Now review of the season opener is already online: www.gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...
“Quanto? Il prezzo?” Is Oliver Mears' new Tosca a keeper? How was Anna Netrebko on her return to Covent Garden? My Opera Now review of the season opener is already online: www.gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...
You'll find out when my review is published!
Pre-Tosca whoops…
Wordle 1,545 2/6 🤓 🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Full statement: www.gentfestival.be/en/news/flan...
Appalling statement by Flanders Festival Ghent re cancellation of the Munich Phil concert: “In the light of his [Lahav Shani’s] role as chief conductor of the Israel Philharmonic, we are unable to provide sufficient clarity about his attitude to the genocidal regime in Tel Aviv.”
Didn't Dohnányi recorded Ruth Crawford Seeger with The Cleveland Orchestra?
Doug McLennan once said criticism should be like a watering-hole, where people with different opinions can gather. I quote that all the time. It's not about thumbs up/down, but sparking discussion. We know there's not one "right" opinion about art; why pretend that's what criticism should offer?
Looking at Ravel in a cracked mirror: my first report from the Festival Ravel bachtrack.com/review-chama...
It was great to see you there, Pablo!
More Ravel to come this week – Daphnis et Chloé in concert at the Proms. It's rarely danced now. You're more likely to see other Ravel works choreographed, reminding me of this all-Ravel programme I reviewed in Paris some years ago: canzonetta.substack.com/p/review-rav...
Souvenirs from the Festival Ravel. Inside the tin, the traditional “Pare Gabea” macarons from Maison Adam in Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
I spent many happy hours here. In the distance, St Catherine's Hill.
Listen carefully at the start of the Alborada del gracioso and you can hear the cicadas! 😃 www.radiofrance.fr/francemusiqu...
Fiesta! Cicadas! And a gilded church where Louis XIV married the Spanish Infanta Maria Theresa. A Spanish postcard to conclude my visit to the Festival Ravel bachtrack.com/review-jorda...
So the Metropolitan Opera can castigate Anna Netrebko and get on its high horse about Ukraine -- and then get in bed with the Saudis? And at this point it seems everyone is too punch-drunk even to be outraged. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/a...
Tilting at windmills: my second day at the Festival Ravel bachtrack.com/review-heiss...
And tonight’s venue, the Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste, ready for Spanish Ravel with the Orchestre National de France and Philippe Jordan 🇪🇸
Looking at Ravel in a cracked mirror: my first report from the Festival Ravel bachtrack.com/review-chama...
Whoops… (Basque edition)
It seems an appropriate time – and place – from which to repost this Gramophone cover story. Unravelling Maurice Ravel: a portrait of the composer at 150 www.gramophone.co.uk/features/art...
The Église Saint-Vincent in Ciboure, where tonight’s two concerts take place… and, a stone’s throw away, the house where Maurice Ravel was born, 150 years ago.
Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside…
It's the BBC Philharmonic conducted by John Storgårds, but with the ENO Chorus.
As yet another Beethoven symphony cycle hits my shelves, I ask... why? open.substack.com/pub/canzonet...
Twice.
When I interviewed her in 2018, she admitted that these heavier roles would inevitably shorten her career.
I last heard her in June: www.gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...
So nearly in two! Wordle 1,534 3/6 🟩⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟨🟨🟩🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
“Banning Netrebko at this late juncture won’t have the slightest impact on her career, the war in Ukraine or Putin’s policies.” www.thetimes.com/culture/clas...
Protests, curtain calls, and disrepute clauses - some more thoughts on artists and global politics: paulcareyjones.wordpress.com/2025/08/30/p...
The greatest Mahler orchestra? The Royal Concertgebouw certainly sounded like it in this Fifth, especially with the terrific Katy Woolley playing Principal Horn. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
“Here the SBSO antiphonal violins played with a subterranean serenity” Yep, those would have been violas there on the right... Seriously, some people shouldn't be given press tickets.
Mambo! They've still got it... 💃🏽 Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar rock the Southbank: bachtrack.com/review-dudam...
Mixed messaging: the Southbank Centre ushers leaping on anyone who so much as looks at their screen in the RFH when the only programme available to audiences is via a QR Code… on their phone.
I have never seen a penalty shoot-out go that far!
Tell me more, tell me more Did you get very far? Tell me more, tell me more Is it 2 in a bar?
Ralph Vaughan Williams died on this day in 1958. Famed today for his Lark Ascending and Tallis Fantasia, but there's so much more of his music to celebrate: bachtrack.com/playlist-ral...
I thought I’d bring you a cocktail to usher in the long weekend! That’s why #RecipeOfTheDay is my Summer Sparkle, a drink fragrant with elderflower, bright, light and lemony, that both encapsulates and instantly imparts a most desirable sunny effervescence. www.nigella.com/recipes/summ...
What are the chances of that? 🤣
Thank you, Gayle. He was a wonderfully thoughtful interviewee.
A great pleasure to meet Seong-Jin Cho at Steinway & Sons last week to talk all things Maurice Ravel: bachtrack.com/interview-se...
And for those of you admiring Elena Zilio, making her Proms debut last night, here she is 50 years ago singing “Quel guardo il cavaliere” from Don Pasquale! www.youtube.com/watch?v=20QF...
Can't believe I subscribed to The Times just to be able to read this!(Get yer commission, Mr P!) Concert operas rarely do it for me. Moreno impressed but I couldn't say Suor Angelica worked as a whole, in the way Fischer & BFO's Bluebeard's Castle did. As an opera novice, 'twas still a nice intro!
Try and catch the Royal Opera revival (it must surely come) of Richard Jones' production. I'm sorry to have missed that Bluebeard's Castle, an opera that can really work well in concert (sometimes, even better than in an opera house).
Last night's Suor Angelica at the Proms left me dry-eyed. Reviewed for @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/culture/clas...
Not sure whether I can see "Pips" catching on... www.nytimes.com/games/pips
Had to share this cute picture of Bruce Liu and his teddy bear 🧸🎹 ___ Together with China NCPA Orchestra & Myung-Whun Chung Bruce Liu kicked off our »Elbphilharmonie Summer« festival ☀️
Me, in The Guardian, wanging on about kingfishers (and other things). www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Fantastic piece from @garrt.bsky.social on one of the true Edwardian greats. And a nice mention of our forthcoming CD of Avril’s music.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born OTD 150 years ago. Here's his rather lovely Clarinet Quintet: youtu.be/YhkxzmDbVN8?...
A refreshingly straightforward Onegin from Wild Arts at Holland Park last night: bachtrack.com/review-eugen...
Brace yourself!
Have spent much of today digesting my thoughts, writing my Postcard from Salzburg for the next print issue of Opera Now.
One Morning Turns into an Eternity... but this performance flew by. The hit production for me at this year's Salzburg Festival: www.gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...
Definitely worth a watch on Medici, Tim, although it doesn't do the production full justice: www.medici.tv/en/operas/do...
Bel canto aerobics: my Opera Now review of Maria Stuarda from the Salzburg Festival www.gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...
@levparikian.bsky.social you may have seen this already, but lbwtest.com
Good fun! I beat the umpire 41-25! 🏏
Bel canto aerobics: my Opera Now review of Maria Stuarda from the Salzburg Festival www.gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...
Ceci Time! Barrie Kosky’s take on Ovid… with help from Antonio Vivaldi
One Morning Turns into an Eternity… new Peter Sellars double bill. Make up your own punchline…
Wordle 1,513 3/6 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Macbeth curtain call
Fifty years since Dmitri Shostakovich died, what does his music mean for us today? Stephen Johnson outlines six lessons from this multifaceted composer – who might just be playing with us... bachtrack.com/feature-shos...
Three Sisters: literally a train wreck (there’ll be no going to Moscow with the line down…)
But is this recording’s reputation… on the block? 🙈
Good to be going head to head with @larkingrumple.bsky.social again in Gramophone - this time about a classic recording of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites:
Maria Stuarda curtain call:
I'm sorry our Salzburg visits don't overlap this time, Michael.
I now feel slight twinge of guilt choosing the Rococo Variations, as this looks a bit like a Tchaikovsky pile-on... @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/culture/clas...
Lunch reservation comes with view attached…
Hohensalzburg, overlooking the city…
I never tire of this view from the Salzburg Festival press terrace! 🇦🇹
