RSNO, 03/12/2016

Verdi : Requiem

Evelina Dobraceva, soprano
Elizabeth DeShong, mezzo-soprano
Edgaras Montvidas, tenor
Hanno Müller-Brachmann, bass-baritone
RSNO Chorus
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Carlos Miguel Prieto

BBCSSO, 01/12/2016

Rachmaninoff : The Isle of the Dead
Mozart : Piano Concerto No. 12, K. 414 (Cédric Tiberghien, piano)
Tchaikovsky : Symphony No. 5

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Matthias Pintscher

Little Shop of Horrors, 18/11/2016

Music by Alan Menken
Lyrics and Book by Howard Ashman

Sell a Door Theatre Company
Choreography by Matthew Cole
Musical direction by Dustin Conrad
Directed by Tara Louis Wilkinson

Citizens' Theatre, 16/11/2016

Sheridan : The Rivals

Directed by Dominic Hill

Royal Opera (HD broadcast), 15/11/2016

Offenbach : Les Contes d'Hoffmann

Royal Opera Chorus
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Evelino Pidò

RSNO, 12/11/2016

Einar Englund : Suite from "Pojat"
Prokofiev : Piano Concerto No. 3 (Nikolai Lugansky, piano)
Mahler : Symphony No. 1

Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Jon Storgårds

SCO, 11/11/2016

Beethoven : The Creatures of Prometheus - Overture
Méhul : Symphony No. 1
Beethoven : Symphony No. 6 "Pastoral"

Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Richard Egarr

BBCSSO, 10/11/2016

Tippett : Ritual Dances from The Midsummer Marriage
Britten : Violin Concerto (Daniel Hope, violin)
Dvorák : Symphony No. 6

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Thomas Dausgaard

RSNO, 05/11/2016

Liadov : The Enchanted Lake
Prokofiev : Piano Concerto No. 5
Prokofiev : Piano Concerto No. 1
Rachmaninoff : Symphony No. 3

Nikolai Lugansky, piano
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Eivind Gullberg Jensen

RCSSO, 04/11/2016

Ravel : Alborada del gracioso
*Ravel : Ma Mère l'Oye - Suite
Ravel : Schéhérazade (Julia Daramy-Williams, soprano)
Mussorgsky : Pictures at an Exhibition (orch. Ravel)

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
Rory Macdonald
*Jirí Rozen

Royal Ballet (HD broadcast), 02/11/2016

Tchaikovsky / Martinu : Anastasia

Artists of The Royal Ballet
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Simon Hewett

Ballet Black, 28/10/2016

Cristaux (chor. Arthur Pita, mus. Steve Reich)
To Begin, Begin (chor. Christopher Marney, mus. Dustin O'Halloran)
Storyville (chor. Christopher Hampson, mus. Kurt Weill)

BBCSSO, 27/10/2016

Ravel : Le Tombeau de Couperin
Barber : Violin Concerto (Valeriy Sokolov, violin)
Vaughan Williams : Symphony No. 5

Nicholas Carter
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Scottish Opera, 23/10/2016

Mascagni : L'amico Fritz

Chorus of L'amico Fritz
Orchestra of Scottish Opera
Stuart Stratford

RSNO, 22/10/2016

Mahler : Blumine
Mahler (arr. Britten) : Symphony No. 3 - 2nd Movement
Sibelius : Violin Concerto (Janine Jansen, violin)
Beethoven : Symphony No. 7

Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Thomas Søndergård

BBCSSO, 20/10/2016

Busoni : Berceuse élégiaque
Busoni : Sarabande et Cortège
Weill : Die sieben Todsünden

Measha Brueggergosman, soprano
Synergy Vocals
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Ilan Volkov

Scottish Opera, 18/10/2016

Mozart : Le Nozze di Figaro

Chorus of The Marriage of Figaro
Orchestra of Scottish Opera
Tobias Ringborg

Bolshoi Ballet (HD broadcast), 16/10/2016

Shostakovich : The Golden Age

Artists of the Boshoi Ballet
Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre
Pavel Klinichev

SCO, 14/10/2016

Mozart : Le Nozze di Figaro - Overture
Suckling : Piano Concerto
Strauss : Le bourgeois gentilhomme - Suite

Tom Poster, piano
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Thierry Fischer

RSNO, 09/10/2016

Françaix : Octet
Schubert : Octet, D.803

Paul Medd, violin
Fiona Stephen, violin
Sophie Lang, viola
Arthur Boutillier, cello
John Clark, double bass
Jean Johnston, clarinet
David Hubbard, bassoon
Christopher Gough, horn

RSNO, 08/10/2016

Khachaturian : Waltz from Masquerade
Tchaikovsky : Violin Concerto (Nicola Benedetti, violin)
Rachmaninoff : Symphony No. 2

Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Peter Oundjian

La Monnaie, 27/09/2016

Verdi : Macbeth

Chorus of La Monnaie
Orchestre symphonique de La Monnaie
Paolo Carignani

ONCT, 18/09/2016

Beethoven : Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor" (Christian Zacharais, piano)
Berlioz : Symphonie fantastique

Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
Tugan Sokhiev

51st Toulouse International Singing Competition - Final, 10/09/2016

Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
David Syrus

Festival du Comminges, 09/08/2016

Janácek : String Quartet No. 2 "Intimate Letters"
Smetana : String Quartet No. 1 "From my Life"
Dvorák : String Quartet No. 10 "Slavonic"

Bennewitz Quartet

Festival du Comminges, 04/08/2016

Beethoven : "Eroica" Variations, Op. 35
Debussy : Images, Book 2
Ravel : Le Tombeau de Couperin

Selim Mazari, piano

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 17/07/2016

Stravinsky : Oedipus rex
Stravinsky : Symphony of Psalms

Orphei Drängar
Gustaf Sjökvist Chamber Choir
Sofia Vokalensensemble
Philharmonia Orchestra
Esa-Pekka Salonen

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 16/07/2016

Debussy : Pelléas et Mélisande

Philharmonia Orchestra
Esa-Pekka Salonen

Guys and Dolls, 07/06/2016

Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser
Book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, after Damon Runyon

Musical direction by Andy Massey
Choreography by Carlos Acosta and Andrew Wright
Directed by Gordon Greenberg

Royal Ballet (HD broadcast), 18/05/2016

Lowell Liebermann : Frankenstein

Artists of The Royal Ballet
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Koen Kessels

Scottish Opera, 15/05/2016

Mozart : Le Nozze di Figaro -

• Overture
• "Porgi amor"

Mozart : Idomeneo -

• "Padre, germani, addio"
• Ballet music

Mozart : "Bella mia fiamma", K. 528
Strauss : "Das Rosenband"; "Ich wollt ein Strausslein binden"; "Allerseelen"; "Ruhe, meine Seele"
Strauss : Der Rosenkavalier - Suite

Kate Royal, soprano
Orchestra of Scottish Opera
Stuart Stratford

SCO, 13/05/2016

Mussorgsky : Dawn over the Moscow River
Sibelius : Violin Concerto (Tedi Papavrami, violin)
Beethoven : Symphony No. 3 "Eroica"

Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Emanuel Krivine

BBCSSO, 12/05/2016

Brahms : Piano Concerto No. 1 (Denis Kozhukhin, piano)
Beethoven : Symphony No. 7

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Thomas Dausgaard

RSNO, 07/05/2016

Bartók : The Miraculous Mandarin - Suite
Stravinsky : Violin Concerto (Leticia Moreno, violin)
Stravinsky : The Rite of Spring

Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Thomas Søndergård

Scottish Opera, 05/05/2016

Gilbert & Sullivan : The Mikado

Chorus of The Mikado
Orchestra of Scottish Opera
Derek Clark

First things first.  If you live in the UK, and were perhaps thinking of catching this show somewhere on its extensive UK tour over the next two months, go without fear.  It's a very enjoyable evening.  And now you may stop reading, because there be spoilers ahead, and some of the jokes are worth experiencing without having been previously warned.

Onwards...

Florence Foster Jenkins, 02/05/2016

Of course I went to see Stephen Frear's biopic of FFJ, what self-respecting opera lover wouldn't - especially on a bank holiday with nothing better to do!  It is worth seeing,very well played and beautifully designed, and, in its way, it's something of a feel-good movie, which you might not expect from the subject.  It didn't, however, quite hit the emotional notes of "Marguerite" (although the French film went over-the-top at the end).

There were two things I found interesting about Frear's movie.  First was the acting, not so much of Streep, good as she is, but of Simon Hellberg and Hugh Grant.  Hellberg was an adorably hapless Cosmé McMoon - rather younger than the real McMoon was at the time - channeling Gene Wilder's Leo Bloom for all his worth.  As for Grant, he was exceptional, in a many-layered role that, for me, quite overshadowed Streep's FFJ.

Second was the sense of period.  When I first heard FFJ's recordings, I though they dated from a good decade earlier.  I've certainly heard recordings from the mid-40s with a much better sound than these Melotone pressings, and it remains, still, a bit of a surprise to realise that they date from the war years.  The period is drawn vividly in Frear's film, but there is in it, visually, what I hear in those recordings - a sense of the end of an era.  Even if FFJ could have sung correctly, there's a sense that she's a relic that has outlived her time, and you see it echoed all around in the look of the film, in the tiara-ed dowagers set against the hip younger crowd, and the fading splendour of the Art Deco architecture and interiors set against the utilitarian dinginess of more 'modern' flats.

So, two down, one to go.

BBCSSO, 21/04/2016

Ives : The Unanswered Question
Brett Dean : Dramatis Personae (Håkan Hardenberger, trumpet)
Rachmaninoff : Symphonic Dances

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Michael Francis

RSNO, 16/04/2016

Rachmaninoff : Caprice bohémien
Prokofiev : Piano Concerto No. 4, for the left hand (Nikolai Lugansky, piano)
Prokofiev : Suite from Cinderella

Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Alexander Lazarev

SCO, 15/04/2016

Stravinsky : Concerto in E flat "Dumbarton Oaks"
Shostakovich : Piano Concerto No. 2 (Anika Vavic, piano)
Ravel : Pavane pour une infante défunte
Bizet : Symphony in C

Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Alexandre Bloch

Bolshoi Ballet (HD broadcast), 10/04/2016

Minkus : Don Quixote

The Bolshoi Ballet
Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre
Pavel Sorokin

RSNO, 09/04/2016

Debussy : Marche écossaise
MacMillan : The Death of Oscar
Ravel : Piano Concerto for the Left Hand (Steven Osborne, piano)
Strauss : Tod und Verklärung
Ravel : La Valse

Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Stéphane Denève

Scottish Opera, 07/04/2016

Dvorak : Rusalka

The Chorus of Rusalka
The Orchestra of Scottish Opera
Stuart Stratford

Royal Ballet (HD broadcast), 06/04/2016

Adam : Giselle

The Royal Ballet
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Barry Wordsworth

TNT, 26/03/2016

Ionesco : La cantatrice chauve

Théâtre National de Toulouse
Directed by Laurent Pelly

Royal Opera (HD broadcast), 21/03/2016

Mussorgsky : Boris Godunov

Royal Opera Chorus

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Sir Antonio Pappano

Capitole de Toulouse, 18/03/2016

Deletes : Coppélia

Ballet du Capitole
Orchestre national du Capitole
Nathan Fifield

Sod's Law strikes again!

The plan for tonight was to see the broadcast from the Paris Opera of Tchaikovsky's Iolanta and The Nutcracker, a pairing that hasn't been seen since they were originally created together.  I was looking forward to it too; Dmitri Tcherniakov is the director of both pieces, and he rarely leaves you indifferent - outraged, quite possibly, but certainly not bored.  Also, one of the choreographers involved in Tcherniakov's revised Nutcracker is the Belgian Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, whose work I've discovered only quite recently.  What I've seen of it has impressed me, and I'm keen to see more.

However, the best laid plans etc. etc.  Arriving at the only cinema scheduling this broadcast for about 100 miles around, I was regretfully informed that the venue had (to all intents and purposes) blown a fuse, and was closed for the night.  Nothing for it but to drive back home and sulk.  I gather that the film will shortly become available to view on France TV's Culturebox, which I believe is available outside the territory, and when I can find 4 hours to spare, I will be looking for it, but it's not quite the same thing....

[Next : 18th March]

Capitole de Toulouse, 08/03/2016

Honegger : Le roi David

Laurent Collombert,  speaker
Magali Léger, soprano
Marie Virot, mezzo-soprano
Alfredo Poesina, tenor

Choeur et Maîtrise du Capitole
Members of the Orchestre du Capitole
Alfonso Caiani

RSNO, 20/02/2016

Debussy : La Mer
Vaughan Williams : A Sea Symphony

Kathleen Broderick, soprano
Benedict Nelson, baritone
RSNO Chorus
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Peter Oundjian

RCSSO, 19/02/2016

Berlioz : King Lear Overture
Debussy : La mer
Berlioz : Symphonie fantastique

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Symphony Orchestra
Alpesh Chauhan

Scottish Opera, 18/02/2016

Handel : Ariodante

The Chorus of Ariodante
The Orchestra of Scottish Opera
Nicholas Kraemer

RSNO, 14/02/2016

RSNO Chamber Series

Dvorak : Terzetto in C, Op. 74
Dvorak : String Quartet No. 12, Op. 96, "American"
Franck : Piano Quintet

Maya Iwabuchi, violin
Xander van Vliet, violin
Tom Dunn, viola
Aleksei Kiseliov, cello
Boris Giltburg, piano

RSNO, 13/02/2016

Tchaikovsky : Capriccio italien
Rachmaninoff : Piano Concerto No. 2 (Boris Giltburg, piano)
Mahler : Symphony No. 5 - Adagietto
Strauss : Der Rosenkavalier - Suite

Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Jean-Claude Picard

BBCSSO, 11/02/2015

Glinka : Valse-fantaisie
Shostakovich : Violin Concerto No. 1 (Boris Brovtsyn, violin)
Mussorgsky (orch. Ravel) : Pictures at an Exhibition

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Vassily Sinaisky

Steven Osborne, 29/01/2016

Debussy : Masques
Debussy : Images, Book 2
Debussy : L'île joyeuse
Rachmaninoff : Etudes-tableaux, Op. 33, Nos. 2, (original) 3 & 5
Rachmaninoff : Etudes-tableaux, Op. 39, Nos. 2, 5, 8 & 9

Steven Osborne, piano

NT Live (HD broadcast), 28/01/2016

Christopher Hampton : Les liaisons dangereuses (after Choderlos de Laclos)

Donmar Warehouse
Directed by Josie Rourke

RCS, 27/01/2016

John Ford : 'Tis Pity She's a Whore

Directed by Gareth Nicholls

Royal Ballet (HD broadcast), 26/01/2016

Rachmaninoff : Rhapsody
Messager : The Two Pigeons

Robert Clark, piano
Artists of the Royal Ballet
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Barry Wordsworth

Bolshoi Ballet (HD broadcast), 24/01/2016

Shostakovich : The Taming of the Shrew

Artists of the Bolshoi Ballet
Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre
Igor Dronov

Metropolitan Opera (HD broadcast), 16/01/2016

Bizet : Les pêcheurs de perles

Chorus and Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera, New York
Gianandrea Noseda

BBCSSO, 14/01/2016

Dukas : The Sorceror's Apprentice
Unsure Chin : Clarinet Concerto (Kari Kriikku, clarinet)
Koechlin : The Seven Stars' Symphony

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Ilan Volkov

Scottish Ballet, 13/01/2016

Prokofiev : Cinderella

Artists of Scottish Ballet
Scottish Ballet Orchestra
Atvars Lakstigala