Live reviews

Some gleanings from this month's Opera magazine.

George Benjamin's new opera Written on Skin will be premiered at the Aix Festival next year, with the composer conducting and Katie Mitchell directing. (Further research brings the information that a strong cast will include Bejun Mehta, Barbara Hannigan, Victoria Simmonds, Allan Clayton and Christopher Purves. The libretto is by Martin Crimp who wrote the libretto to Benjamin's previous opera, the truly wonderful Into the Little Hill. We are promised that the opera will be coming to Covent Garden, so Hurrah!).

David Daniels will be creating the title role in Theodore Morrison's new opera Oscar based on Oscar Wilde, with a libretto by the veteran opera director John Cox.

The magazine also included a review of Heritage Opera's performance of Jonathan Dove's Mansfield Park. Dove's opera is deliberately small scale, suited to touring and uses a piano duet as accompaniment. The librettist is Alasdair Middleton who has worked on a number of Dove's other operatic projects. Roderic Dunnett's enthusiastic review was of a performance at Townley Hall in Burnely. Let's hope that we Londoners get a chance to hear the piece as well.