English National Opera is commencing a new Ring Cycle, directed by Richard Jones, but rather than starting with the first opera in Richard Wagner’s tetralogy, Das Rheingold, it is beginning with the second, The Valkyrie. Then, over the next five years, the complete series will be presented in a co-production with New York’s Metropolitan Opera. While in the initial instalment the chief god Wotan manages to retain his status and magnificent fortress Valhalla, albeit at a...

Although this is English National Opera’s first production of HMS Pinafore, it has a long and proud tradition of performing works by Gilbert and Sullivan. It is, however, a deceptively difficult task for a major opera house to pull off their creations because it is so easy for any production to fall either side of the tightrope it inevitably walks. On the one hand, these operettas require energy and so it is always a risk that top professionals in their pursuit of excellence will...

Philip Glass is recognised as one of the leading figures in minimalism today, and yet it is not a word he especially likes. This is understandable since it can severely underplay the variety of music that is all too often categorised under this one umbrella term. Glass himself has written over twenty-five operas, yet even if we look at just his trilogy that focuses on pivotal figures in the fields of science, politics and religion respectively, the styles of composition are markedly...

Set in Japan, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly of 1904 explores the relationship between the American naval officer Pinkerton and the Nagasaki born Cio-Cio-San, who he both affectionately and patronisingly calls Madam Butterfly. She takes their marriage extremely seriously, even converting to Christianity the day before their wedding and consequently being ostracised by her family. He, on the other hand, sees his union as being akin to his Japanese house,...

Luisa Miller is not one of Verdi’s total rarities, but it does not grace major opera houses with anywhere near the same frequency as his most popular creations. The work, however, has much merit as, for example, Act II ends with an allegro in three mounting stages that, although quickening towards an animated finish, is not like a conventional stretta. Written in 1849, it is regarded as coming at the beginning of the composer’s ‘middle period’, with...

Based on Prosper Mérimée’s eponymous novella, Georges Bizet’s Carmen of 1875 is the story of the ultimate temptress. A gypsy and cigarette factory worker in Seville, Carmen has the power to entice any man she chooses. Once, however, they are besotted with her she quickly moves on, leaving them heart broken and unable to accept what has happened. In the opera Don José, an army corporal, has almost everything he could ever desire. He has the sweet, loving...