Youthful & engaging with relish for text & drama: Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea from HGO at Jackson's Lane Theatre

Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea - Hera Protopapas (Nerone), Theano Papadaki (Poppea) - HGO at Jackson's Lane Theatre (Photo: Julian Guidera)

Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea; Hera Protopapas, Theano Papadaki, Louis Pettit, Jasmine Flicker, Henry Saywell, Henry Kimber, Harriet Cameron, Clover Kayne, Betty Makharinsky, director: Ashley Pearson, conductor Seb Gillot, HGO; Jackson's Lane Theatre
Reviewed 15 November 2025

A young cast project both words and music with great vividness, drawing us into the drama in the small-scale but brilliantly realised production.

Most great music can take a variety of different approaches in performance, but it is worth remembering that the Venetian theatres in which Monteverdi's operas were premiered were not large affairs. His final opera, L'incoronazione di Poppea responds well to smaller, more intimate performance and, after all, the work is effectively a series of solo and dialogues. So, Jackson's Lane Theatre, the chosen venue for HGO's performances of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea was in many ways ideal. The company gave eight performances with two casts, with many singers having two alternating roles so that Theano Papadaki, the Poppea in the performance was saw, was singing Damigella on alternate nights. We caught the penultimate performance on Saturday 15 November 2025.

The production was directed by Ashley Pearson who directed Handel's Agrippina for HGO in 2023 and Handel's Partenope for them in 2019 [see my review]. Music director Seb Gillot directed the period instrument ensemble of seven from the harpsichord and organ. Designs were by Sorcha Corcoran and Alice Carroll, with lighting by Sofia Alexiadou and Robin Hellier as intimacy/fight coach. Hera Protopapas was Nerone with Theano Papadaki as Poppea, Louis Pettit as Ottone, Jasmine Flicker as Drusilla, Henry Saywell as Seneca, Henry Kimber as Arnalta, Harriet Cameron as Amor, Clover Kayne as Virtu, Betty Makharinsky as Fortuna, Garreth Romain as Nutrice, Kristina Ammattil as Damigella, Emily Beech as Valetto, and Brennan Alleyne and Jack Harberd as soldiers.

Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea - Henry Saywell (Seneca), Henry Kimber (Famigliare) - HGO at Jackson's Lane Theatre (Photo: Julian Guidera)

The cast were all young singers; one of HGO's aims is to give younger singers a chance at exploring larger roles. In the case of L'incoronazione di Poppea this works historically as all the major protagonists (Seneca apart) were in their 20s or very early 30s. But there is a lot of dialogue in the opera, it is more like a sung place than later Baroque operas, and this can present a challenge to less inexperienced singers. It is to HGO's credit that, and thanks to assistant director/language coach Valeria Perboni, the cast all grasped the idea of the text with both hands. Italian diction was excellent all round and many of the singers attacked the Italian text with a wonderful relish. There were English surtitles, but this was the sort of performance where if your Italian was good enough, there was little need for surtitles.

Sorcha Corcoran's setting was quite straight-forward, just a rectangular space enlivened by billowing fabrics. There was some flexible scene setting, but the emphasis was on personal interaction and ensuring that scenes flowed. The end result was very much a feeling that we were at a sung play. Costumes were largely modern, though the goddesses were in antique garb whilst the soldiers had suggestions of armour and most of the protagonists wore coloured sashes.

From Amy Beach to Lori Laitman & Zachary James Bramble: The Life and Loves of Sarah Teasdale gave us the chance to explore contemporary American late-romanticism at London Song Festival

Sara Teasdale. Photograph by Gerhard Sisters, ca. 1910
Missouri History Museum Photograph and Print Collection

The Life and Loves of Sarah Teasdale; Kristin Dauphinais, Nigel Foster; London Song Festival at Hinde Street Methodist Church
Reviewed 14 November 2025

A chance to explore the work of an American poet not so well known in the UK along with a whole range of late 20th and 21st century American composers

The American poet Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) is perhaps not as well known in the UK as in the USA. Born into a wealthy family in Missouri, she would write seven books of poetry charting developments in her own life, from her experiences as a sheltered young woman in St. Louis, to those as a successful yet increasingly uneasy writer in New York City, to a depressed and disillusioned person who would commit suicide in 1933. Popular in her lifetime, Teasdale wrote poetry that used traditional forms with a reliance on metre and rhyme. It is worth bearing in mind that she was only four years older than T.S. Eliot and for a short period the two attended the same school! 

There is a strong sense that Teasdale's poetry was self-reflexive which made her a highly suitable subject for a recital which sought to elucidate Teasdale's story via songs setting her poetry. At the London Song Festival at Hinde Street Methodist Church on Friday 14 November 2025, mezzo-soprano Kristin Dauphinais and pianist Nigel Foster did just that with The Life and Loves of Sara Teasdale. Dauphinais is based in Arizona where she teaches at the University of Arizona and the recital has also been presented there. The selection of songs focused on settings by 20th and 21st century American composers, giving us a selection whose work I had not heard before.

We had a mix of living and historical composers with music by Amy Beach (1867-1944), Wintter Watts (1884-1962), Katherine Glen, John Duke (1899-1984), Robert Baksa (1938-2023), and Simon Sargon (1938-2022) many of whom were effectively Sara Teasdale's contemporaries, alongside contemporary composers Richard Pearson Thomas, George Crumb, Lori Laitman, Michael Ching, Zachary James Bramble, and Martha Helen Schmidt.

The Rain Keeps Coming: Amelia Clarkson, the youngest female composer ever commissioned by the Ulster Orchestra, on her new work for them which premiered last month

Amelia Clarkson

The Rain Keeps Coming by Northern Irish composer Amelia Clarkson was premiered by the Ulster Orchestra at the Ulster Hall in Belfast on 10 October 2025. The work explores cycles of personal renewal and reflection. Amelia is the youngest female composer ever commissioned by the Ulster Orchestra. 

Born in County Down, her music blends folk influences with contemporary timbres, exploring modern issues through the lens of nature, mythology and literature and has been described as having "inherent elusiveness… beautifully captured" (Het Parool). Her 2024 work, I float between, was premiered National Symphony Orchestra Ireland, conductor Gavin Maloney, at the National Concert Hall in Dublin in January 2025. The work was broadcast live by RTÉ Lyric FM, and this recording can be heard on Amelia's SoundCloud.

Amelia Clarkson · I float between (2024) National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland

Chatting to Amelia after the premiere, she comments that the performance went well, though with a relatively short rehearsal period, the time went very fast, and she did feel pressure. She first met the orchestra in 2023 and never expected to be working with them at such a young age. She has known she was writing a piece for them for two years. And whilst the prospect of writing for the orchestra had its scary aspects, the reality of working with them was lovely, both the musicians and the people behind the scenes. Amelia benefited from the orchestra workshopping the piece in May 2024, something that does not always happen. This gave the musicians and the composer the chance to get to grips with each other.

A spectacular new waterside home planned for Hamburg State Opera, designed by BIG architecture studio

BIG - designs for Hamburg State Opera, renders by Yanis Amasri (images: BIG)

Hamburg State Opera is on the move, or at least plans to be. The architecture studio BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) has unveiled plans for a waterfront home for Hamburg State Opera to replace the company's existing 1950s theatre. To be built within the German city's HafenCity quarter, the 45,000-square-metre venue will contain production and performance facilities for the State Opera and Hamburg Ballet, and the building will sit close to another architectural showpiece, the Elbphilharmonie.

Gardens and terraces wrap around the main volume, with visitors being able to move along the facades and glimpse performance and rehearsal spaces. Of course, the big question is, will the theatre be any good?

Jakob Sand (partner BIG) commented: "The main hall is the heart of the project - a space with state-of-the-art acoustics and perfect sightlines to the stage. Immersive concentric wooden rings shape the hall and its balconies, dissolve the boundaries between spectators and artists, between reality and fiction." 

Full details from the BIG website.

The Sixteen Ignite, a new, fully-funded, dedicated talent pathway for young singers

The Sixteen has announced a new strand to its Learning & Participation programme which seeks to support young singers in finding a pathway into choral music. The Sixteen Ignite features a new Academy, an extension of the existing Talent Development Programme and a set of digital resources.

The Sixteen Ignite: Academy is a new fully funded programme for singers aged 14 – 18 to gain experience in working in training environments, and to prepare them for working in programmes designed for young singers, such as Genesis Sixteen. The Academy will support 44 young people who show exceptional potential but who have faced barriers in accessing training in choral music. 

The Sixteen Ignite: Inspire will build on The Sixteen’s Talent Development programme, a collaborative partnership between The Sixteen and youth choirs across the UK. This partnership sees The Sixteen provide workshops to support young singers in established youth choirs. The Talent Development programme will continue to partner with new and existing choirs, with a new influx of funding to enable the programme to reach as wide a demographic of young people as possible. 

The Sixteen Ignite: Digital is a set of free digital resources which will be distributed to primary and secondary schools across the UK, allowing students the opportunity to sing virtually with the renowned choir. 

Agnes Baltsa, Marina Rebeka, Asmik Grigorian, Nicholas Brownlee, Adèle Charvet, Hugh Cutting & many more rewarded at the 2025 International Opera Awards in Athens

Agnes Baltsa, Lifetime Achievement Award winner
International Opera Awards 2025 - (Photo: GNO/Simopoulos)

'Tis the season for awards. Hot on the heels of the Ivors Classical Awards [see my article] comes the International Opera Awards whose ceremony, this year, was held in Athens at the Stavros Niarchos Hall of the Greek National Opera. The event featured performances by soloists Marina Rebeka and Nicholas Brownlee, winners of the Readers’ and Male Singer Awards respectively, along with performances of works by Greek composers Spyridon Samaras, Paolo Carrer, Theofrastos Sakellaridis, Nikos Skalkottas, Mikis Theodorakis and Giorgos Koumendakis from Greek National Opera forces. 

The evening was live-streamed and is available on OperaVision.

A concert celebrating the legacy of the legendary classical guitarist, Julian Bream, at Wigmore Hall promises a great night for guitar aficionados.

Thibaut Garcia,

Continuing the legacy of the brilliant and pioneering British classical guitarist, Julian Bream, the equally brilliant French-born classical guitarist, Thibaut Garcia, joins forces with the award-winning ensemble, Quatuor Arod, to perform the world première of Leo Brouwer’s new guitar quintet, Cuban Landscape with Danzas, at the Wigmore Hall on Friday 21 November (7.30pm).  

Founded in 2013, Quatuor Arod enjoy a good working relationship with Garcia while enjoying a blossoming and globetrotting career. For instance, in the present season, they’re quartet-in-residence at the Mendelssohnhaus, Leipzig and with La Belle Saison (a French chamber music network that organises concerts and fosters young artists) and clarinettist, Pierre Génisson, they’ll be performing at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Paris, whilst also visiting Brussels, Tenerife, Den Haag and Hamburg. 

They are also participating at the String Quartet Biennales in both Paris (Philharmonie) and Amsterdam (Muziekgebouw) where they’ll team up with Klaus Mäkelä, chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic. They’ll also team up with Quatuor Danel for concerts at London’s Southbank Centre and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. Recently, the Danels took part in a series of celebratory concerts in Paris marking the centenary of Valentin Berlinsky, founder and cellist of the Borodin String Quartet. 

Prize-winners all the way, too, they took full honours by winning First Prize at the ARD International Music Competition of Munich in 2016 while a year earlier they were awarded the First Prize at the Carl Nielsen International Competition of Copenhagen and the First Prize at the European Competition of the FNAPEC Concours a year before. They participated in the BBC New Generation Artists scheme from 2017 to 2019 and became an ECHO Rising Star for the 2018-19 season.  

Signed to Warner Classics, Garcia’s celebrated for his poetic artistry and refined technique while Quatuor Arod - Jordan Victoria (playing a violin by Francesco Goffriller), Alexandre Vu (violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini), Tanguy Parisot (composite viola by Carlo Ferdinando Landolphi, Pietro Giovanni Mantegazza, 1775) and Jérémy Garbarg (cello by Giovanni Battista Ruggieri, circa 1700) - offers a delightful programme at the Wigmore Hall traversing centuries of guitar music ranging from classical masterworks to contemporary innovation. 

2025 Ivors Classical Awards: Anibal Vidal, Anna Clyne, Helen Grime, Jonathan Dove, Luke Mombrea, Nneka Cummins, Anne Dudley, Anoushka Shankar and Debbie Wiseman

Jonathan Dove and April de Angelis, winners of the Award for Best Community and Participation Composition at The Ivors Classical Awards [Photo: Hogan Media - Shutterstock]

Last night, 11 November, The Ivors Academy presented awards to the winners at The Ivors Classical Awards. The celebration of outstanding new compositions by British, Irish and UK resident composers. BBC Radio 3 will broadcast the ceremony on 15 November in a special edition of the New Music Show and the episode will also be available on BBC Sounds.

Three special Gift of the Academy Awards were presented to Anne Dudley, Anoushka Shankar and Debbie Wiseman, and a further eight composers and librettists were recognised across six categories, with Ivor Novello Awards going to composers Anibal Vidal, Anna Clyne, Helen Grime, Jonathan Dove, Luke Mombrea and Nneka Cummins, and librettists April De Angelis and Zoe Gilbert. 

Poetic exploration: Ensemble Près de votre oreille in an engaging exploration of chamber & vocal music by William Lawes

Lighten mine eies - William Lawes: selected psalms & harp consorts; Ensemble Près de votre oreille, Robin Pharo; Harmonia Mundi
Reviewed 11 November 2025

For their debut on Harmonia Mundi, the young French ensemble give us a poetic exploration of the music of William Lawes putting his imaginative Harp Consorts alongside his intimate psalm settings and theatre music 

Whilst 17th-century English composer William Lawes is best known for his viol consorts and music for lyra viol, his elder brother Henry Lawes is known for his vocal music with little instrumental music surviving. This new disc, Lighten mine eies from Ensemble Près de votre oreille and Robin Pharo on Harmonia Mundi sets William Lawes instrumental works against his vocal pieces in an attractive programme that mixes movements from the Harp Consorts, psalm settings and songs.

Henry, Willliam and their younger brothers Thomas and John were born to Thomas Lawes and his wife Lucris. Thomas senior was a church musician who became a lay vicar at Salisbury Cathedral. The family lived in the Close and it is presumed that the boys all sang in the choir. Thanks to a patron, William Lawes was apprenticed to English composer John Coprario (Cooper). By 1635 William had a Court appointment but had been writing music for the Court before this. William remained at loyal courtier, writing music for King Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria both for public and private use.

Ensemble Près de votre oreille features Maïlys de Villoutreys (soprano), Anaïs Bertrand (mezzo-soprano), Alex Rosen (bass), Fiona-Emilie Poupard (violin and viola da gamba), Pernelle Marzorati (harp), Simon Waddell (theorbo), Loris Barrucand (harpsichord and organ) and Robin Pharo (viola da gamba and direction). The ensemble was founded by Robin Pharo in 2017 and previous discs have included two devoted to Elizabethan song, Come Sorrow and Blessed Echoes.

Shimmer: the National Youth Orchestra launches 2026 with impressions of Spain and Anne Clyne's dancing cello

The National Youth Orchestra (NYO) launches 2026 with Shimmer, a three-date tour where the orchestra will be conducted by Alexandre Bloch in a programme with a distinctly Spanish theme. The evening begins with Debussy's Ibéria and ends with Ravel's Rhapsodie Espagnole and in between there is Karim Al-Zand's City Scenes and Anna Clyne's DANCE with cellist Inbal Segev. The tour begins at the Barbican Centre (4 January), followed by Warwick Arts Centre (5 January), Nottingham Royal Concert Hall (6 January) and free schools concert at the Elgar Concert Hall, Birmingham (7 January).

There will be around 160 musicians on stage, with over half of this year’s musicians new to the NYO. Demand for places in the orchestra of 2026 was at an all-time high with a record number of applications. Musicians hail from every corner of the country from Bromley to Ballymena and Abergavenny to Aberdeen. NYO’s concerts remain free for teenagers, to ensure there are no barriers for young people experiencing the power of a live orchestra. About half of the Orchestra will stay on in Birmingham to perform in a free schools concert for thousands of secondary school students on 7 January.

This will be conductor Alexandre Bloch's second time working with the Orchestra, he conducted them in in their 2024 Prom.

Anna Clyne wrote DANCE in 2019 for cellist Inbal Segev who gave the premiere of the work at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California. The work is in five movements, each inspired by a line from verse by Rumi: 

Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance, when you're perfectly free. 

 Clyne discusses her inspiration in more detail in an article on Boosey & Hawkes's website.

Karim Al-Zand is a Canadian-American composer. His music embraces a variety of interests, issues and influences. It explores connections between sound and other art forms, drawing inspiration from graphic art, myths and fables, folk music of the world, film, poetry, jazz, and his own Middle Eastern heritage.  His City Scenes from 2006 is described as 'three urban dances for orchestra'.

Full details from the NYO website. 

The other brother: music by Galileo Galilei's younger brother on this lovely new EP

It is now moderately well-known that the great scientist Galileo Galilei's father, Vincenzo was a fine musician and there have been music and music theatre projects linking the two such as Clare Norburn's Galileo which premiered at the Brighton Early Music Festival in 2016 [see my review]. 

In fact, the whole family seems to have been musical. Vincenzo was a lutenist and Galileo would play lute duets with his father. As a young man he assisted his father's experiments to prove that equal temperament was better than mean-tone tuning, and as his father was a member of the Florentine Camerata, whose experiments led to the development of monody and to opera, the music in Galileo's life was cutting edge. Galileo was present at, and almost certainly involved in, the creation of the Florentine Intermedi of 1589, a musico-dramatic presentation which was an important pre-cursor of opera.

But Galileo had a younger brother, Michelangelo and he was a musician too though his music is far less well-known. Echo ex iove from lutenist Israel Golani is an EP from Solaire Records (available on BandCamp) which presents six short dances by Michelangelo Galilei (1575-1631). The EP is something of a follow-up to Golani's previous disc for Solaire Records, In the Garden of Polyphony, exploration of the 16th-century French penchant for lute music, notably transcriptions of polyphonic vocal music [see my review]

Michelangelo Galilei was something of a child prodigy. His father, Vincenzo, died when Michelangelo was just sixteen and only two years later he was sent to the the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, where foreign musicians were much in demand, possibly under the wing of the powerful Lithuanian Radziwiłł family. He tried to come back to Florence, but failed to find employment at the court of the Grand Duke, however in 1607 he moved to the court of Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria where he stayed until his death. Of his eight children, three became lutenists.

Whatever musical success he had, money was clearly tight and much of his surviving correspondence with Galileo is about money. 

Most of his music is for lute, the ten-course lute and his book Il primo libro d'intavolatura di liuto was published in 1620. Israel Golani plays a suite of six dances beginning with a toccata, then corrente, passamezzo, saltarello and volta. There is an engagingly melodic quality to this music, but also a florid quality too. The suite makes a delightful EP with a lovely engaging quality to Golani's playing. I would not want a full-length disc of this music, but it would be lovely to have more.

Michelangelo Galilei: Echo ex iove - Israel Golani (lute) - Solaire Records

A bold, atmospheric work rooted in English folklore, ritual, & superstition: Shadwell Opera & Opera North give the stage premiere of Isabella Gellis' The Devil's Den

Ben Edge: Devil's Den

Last year I chatted to conductor Finnegan Downie Dear (artistic director of Shadwell Opera) and composer Isabella Gellis about Shadwell Opera's semi-staged presentation of Gellis' new opera, The Devil's Den at the Nevill Holt Festival [see my interview]. Now, the opera is getting its world premiere staging when Shadwell Opera joins forces with Opera North to present The Devil's Den at Opera North's Howard Assembly Room on 15 November 2025.

The production is directed by Jack Furness and conducted by Finnegan Downie Dear, with a strong cast featuring ennifer France, Lotte Betts-Dean, Nicholas Morris, and Ossian Huskinson. Also on stage will be Sheffield City Morris as the opera is the first ever to feature a live Morris Dancing Side as part of its dramatic structure. 

Inspired by the painting by British artist Ben Edge, The Devil’s Den tells a haunting story of a child, a rabbit, a druid, and a devil, set in a nameless English village bound by ancient ritual to create a bold, atmospheric work rooted in English folklore, ritual, and superstition.

Audiences are invited to make a day of it: alongside the two performances, the Howard Assembly Room will host folk singing and Morris dancing workshops, and talks with artists and musicians, creating a fully immersive folk-meets-opera day out.

Full details from Opera North's website.

Dramatic Messiah: Wild Arts brings its dramatised presentation of Handel's oratorio back for a third tour

Handel: Messiah - Wild Arts at Smith Square Hall in 2024 (Photo: Steve Gregson)

We caught Wild Arts' dramatised presentation of Handel's Messiah at the Art Workers' Guild in London in 2023 [see my review] in a staging devised by Tom Morris. The company brought the production back for a tour in 2024 and it now returns for a third time. 

Orlando Jopling directs a period instrument ensemble from the harpsichord with eight singers, Sofia Kirwan-Baez and Joanna Songi soprano, Martha Jones and Kate Symonds-Joy mezzo, Guy Elliott and Harry Jacques tenor, Timothy Nelson baritone, and Edward Hawkins bass, with many of the singers having performed in those first performances in 2023. The singers perform from memory, with choruses sung by all eight and solos shared. The results have a palpable sense of dramatic narrative.

This year, the tour kicks off at the Festival Theatre, Malvern (2 December) and then visits Smith Square Hall, London (9 December), New Theatre, Peterborough (11 December), Layer Marney Tower (14 December), Chichester Cathedral (16 December) and Chelmsford Cathedral (18 December). Many venues sold out last year and this year at least one has done so already!

Full details from the Wild Arts website.

An ambitious project that seeks to reimagine one of our great literary giants: Alastair White & Gemma A Williams ask how you adapt Finnegan's Wake for the musical stage

 James Joyce began his novel Finnegan's Wake in 1924 publishing it in instalments with the final book only being published in 1939. Joyce's radical reworking of language in the book was initially received with bafflement and open hostility. Its allusive and experimental style has resulted in it having a reputation as one of the most difficult works in literature. 

Now composer Alastair White is planning to adapt Finnegan's Wake for the musical stage. White has very clear intentions when it comes to the project. He seeks to capture the joyful, multidimensional beauty of Joyce’s text. He explains how "central to the adaptation’s approach is a radical re-reading of Finnegans Wake and the modernist canon: that authors such as Joyce, Eliot and Hemingway continue to be misread through romantic and post-modern analyses that sees them as depths rather than surfaces. The project contends that — like the sparse prose of Hills Like White Elephants —  Finnegans Wake has been ill-used by approaches that attempt to 'decode' it through what is absent: in ignorance of the sheer joy that the language embodies. There is no iceberg, no skeleton key; Finnegans Wake is not a cipher. It is only itself." 

As part of Irish Design Week, Alastair White and his creative partner and wife, Tipperary-born curator Gemma A. Williams, will be in residence at the Thomas MacDonagh Museum, Cloughjordan, Co. Tipperary, Ireland from 17 to 23 November 2025. The week-long residency, selected as part of Design & Crafts Council Ireland’s flagship initiative, invites audiences to see opera in the making and witness how literature, theatre, fashion and music can intersect and redesign one another.  Education lies at the heart of the open studio, which includes talks, practical workshops and an outreach programme. The residency runs in the heart of Cloughjordan: home of the poet Thomas MacDonagh, whose teacher parents taught in the local school.

Further information from the Design & Crafts Council Ireland website.  

Fascinating, distracting & frustrating: Janáček's Makropulos Case gets its first production at Covent Garden in director Katie Mitchell's farewell to opera

Janácek: The Makropulos Case - Act 2: Heather Engebretson, Susan Bickley, Jenry Waddington, Sean Panikkar, Ausrine Stundyte - Royal Opera (Photo: Camilla Greenwell/Royal Opera)

Leoš Janáček: The Makropulos Case; Ausrine Stundyte, Heather Engebretson, Sean Panikkar, Johan Reuter, Henry Waddington, Peter Hoare, Daniel Matoušek, Alan Oke, director Katie Mitchell, conductor Jakub Hrůša; Royal Opera, Covent Garden
Reviewed 7 November 2025

Covent Garden's first Makropulos Case in a fascinating yet distracting and too-complex production that is redeemed by strong musical performances including a mesmerising account of the title role

Leoš Janáček's The Makropulos Case (Věc Makropulos) made its debut at the Royal Opera House this week, nearly a century after the opera was premiered in Brno in 1926. The production represented director Katie Mitchell's avowed final opera production, as well as being Jakub Hrůša's second new production as music director (and his first new production of a Czech opera).

We caught the second performance at Covent Garden on Friday 7 November 2025. Directed by Katie Mitchell with designs by Vicki Mortimer and Sussie Juhlen-Wallen, lighting by James Farncombe and video by Sasha Balmazi-Owen, Jakub Hrůša conducted. Ausrine Stundyte was Emilia Marty, Heather Engebretson as Krista, Sean Panikkar was Albert Gregor, Johan Reuter was Prus, Henry Waddington was Kolenaty, Peter Hoare was Vitek, Daniel Matoušek was Janek, Alan Oke was Hauk-Sendorf.

If you asked, many people familiar with the opera would probably say that its biggest problem was in Act One when Janáček rather gets bogged down in the Jarndyce-v-Jarndyce-like case. It can be tricky to work out who is whom amongst the men (with three lawyers, two litigants plus the son of one) and audiences need some help. You cannot help feeling that Janáček could have done with a figure in the opening scene like Ferrando in Verdi's Il trovatore or Gurnemanz in Wagner's Parsifal, both of whom summarise the plot so far!

Janácek: The Makropulos Case - Final scene: Austrine Stundyte, Heather Engebretson - Royal Opera (Photo: Camilla Greenwell/Royal Opera)

But according to the programme book, the biggest problem for Katie Mitchell is the opera's ending. Why does Emilia Marty (now revealed as Elina Makropulos) hand the formula for eternal (well 300 years) life to Krista, a young woman whom she barely knows. Mitchell's solution is to add an extra layer to the plot, an affair between Emilia Marty and Krista so that Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern-like, Mitchell crafts an entire plot within the cracks of Janáček's existing opera. She does so via a device which is by turns fascinating, distracting and frustrating.

James Blades: Pandemonium of the One-Man Band - James Anthony-Rose on his new music theatre piece on the great percussionist

James Blades

The percussionist James Blades (1901-1999) had a career that not only spanned much of the century but also moved from circus drummer and accompanist to silent movies at the Wisbech Hippodrome, to the international classical concert hall, including a close association with Benjamin Britten, helping the composer with many of his percussion effects. But many remember him as an endearing communicator, touring the country with his lecture-recital-demonstrations.

James Anthony-Rose in James Blades: Pandemonium of the One-Man Band at Snape Maltings

Written by Robin Brooks and James Anthony-Rose, James Blades: Pandemonium of the One-Man Band was a music theatre show performed at Snape Maltings on 11 October 2025. Directed and produced by Fiona McAlpine with music direction by Tomi Rose, the event featured actor James Anthony-Rose with percussionist Sam Wilson in a show which reimagined one of Blades' lectures. Using demonstrations of instruments and techniques, and anecdotes and revelations, James Anthony-Rose told the story of Blades's remarkable life, together with a celebration of the power and mystery of his extraordinary talent and career. The BBC recorded the show, which will be broadcast on Radio 3 on 23 November 2025.

James Anthony-Rose, who co-wrote and starred in the show, is an actor, perhaps best known for his role in All Creatures Great and Small. When I asked what exactly James Blades: Pandemonium of the One-Man Band is, he laughed, said it was a good question that was really up to the listener. He described the show as a drama-documentary, though that term really came from BBC Radio 3, as that was the slot they were going to broadcast the show in. But James found the idea liberating; the show could be anything they wanted it to be.

He co-wrote the piece with Robin Brooks, who has written a lot for Radio 3. They used James Blades' autobiography, Drum Roll, as source material along with archive footage, and the show developed into a one-man show with James playing James Blades with a format not unlike Blades' percussion lectures. 

From bel canto to Harlem Renaissance: Lawrence Brownlee & Iain Burnside's recital at Wigmore Hall

Lawrence Brownlee

Tenor Lawrence Brownlee is on of the premier bel canto tenors around at the moment. And he's rightly busy, his season included a last-minute step-in as Elvino in Bellini's La sonnambula at the Met, where he recently opened in Donizetti's La fille du régiment, alongside Erin Morley, and further ahead there he stars in a new production of Bellini's I Puritani - the Met’s first in nearly fifty years.

The good news is that Brownlee is making a London appearance on 22 November 2025 in recital at Wigmore Hall with pianist Iain Burnside. Their programme is a fascinating showcase of music by Italian and American composers with nary an operatic aria in sight.

Instead, Brownless and Burnside open with a selection of songs by Donizetti before moving onto Respighi. Then they move on to Liszt's Tre sonetti di Petrarca in the virtuosic first version. Arias in all but name, this is music inspired by Liszt's sojurn in Italy in the 1830s and we can almost hear distant hints of Bellini in the vocal line, which makes it all the more desirable having them sung by a bel canto tenor.

The second half of the programme reflects Brownlee's engagement with more recent music. First there is Dominick Argento's Six Elizabethan Song and songs from Ricky Ian Gordon's Genuis Child.

Argento's songs were written in the late 1950s for the tenor Nicholas Di Virgilio. The composer said of them, "The songs are called 'Elizabethan' because the lyrics are drawn from that rich period in literature, while the music is in the spirit (if not the manner) of the great English composer- singer-lutenist, John Dowland. The main concern is the paramount importance of the poetry and the primacy of the vocal line over a relatively simple and supportive accompaniment."

Ricky Ian Gordon's Genuis Child is a cycle of ten songs written in 1993 for soprano Harolyn Blackwell. They set poems by Langston Hughes and the songs were described as "one of the freshest English language song cycles to come along in recent memory". 

Brownlee's project Rising, commissioned six of today’s leading African-American composers to set poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to song. Brownlee recorded their cycles alongside selections by Margaret Bonds and Robert Owens.  

And at the concert Brownlee will be singing Robert Owens' Desire, settings of four poems by Langston Hughes. Robert Owens (1925-2017) was born in Texas and studied in Europe after the War, returning to Germany in the late 1950s where he developed a career as a film and stage actor, composer, and pianist.

Brownlee will also be performing songs by Jasmine Barnes and Joel Thompson from his Rising project.

Full details from the Wigmore Hall website. 

 

A somewhat quirky mood: Stephen McNeff's new violin concerto for Fenella Humphreys & London Mozart Players mixes Baroque inspiration with something more contemporary

The London Mozart Players (Photo: Kaupo Kickkas)

On Friday 21 November 2025, violinist Fenella Humphreys, the London Mozart Players and conductor Jonathan Bloxham will give the premiere of the Violin Concerto by Stephen McNeff at St Martin in the Fields, London. The work is a commission from the London Mozart Players and the John Armitage Memorial Trust and it will receive a further performance at the JAM on the Marsh Festival on Romney Marsh in 2026.

McNeff has scored the piece for strings, harpsichord and percussion and he takes his inspiration from a classic baroque style, particularly in the relatively small forces required - just strings and harpsichord, but with a twist. McNeff has added percussion to the mix: temple blocks, bells, even an ominous quiet bass drum one point. He suggests that the percussion "offers a dimension not encountered in earlier music and suggests perhaps a somewhat quirky mood".

Conductor Jonathan Bloxham is pairing the work with two pieces by Beethoven, Coriolan Overture and Symphony No.3 in E flat Major Op.55, ‘Eroica’ so we can expect drama and fireworks.

Full details from the London Mozart Players' website.

A new solo album from British pianist, Alexander Ullman, features a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining selection of music by Edvard Grieg - ‘The Chopin of the North’

Edvard Grieg: Songs, Moods and Lyric Pieces; Alexander Ullman; Rubicon Classics 
Reviewed by Tony Cooper (31 October 2025)

The prize of Ullman’s album, though, is his transcription of Peer Gynt Suite, No.1, drawing out the colour of the orchestra from the piano perhaps more so than in the composer’s own version.  

First coming to international attention in 2011 after winning the Franz Liszt International Piano Competition in Budapest, Alexander Ullman has performed at such prestigious venues as Vienna’s Musikverein with the Tonkünstler Orchestra of Lower Austria under the baton of Hans Graf, the Salzburg Grosser Saal with the Mozarteum Orchestra (Patrick Hahn), the Sichuan Symphony Orchestra (Darrell Ang), Kristiansand Symfoniorkester (Julian Rachlin) and the SWR Sinfonierrchester (Joseph Bastian) whilst returning to the Sofia Philharmonic under Jonathan Bloxham.  

Other recent highlights of this globetrotting pianist include making his début at the prestigious Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, the Klavierfest Ruhr, concerto appearances with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta (under Ola Rudner), Sofia Philharmonic and Filharmonie Brno (Dennis Russell Davies), the Symphony of India Orchestra (Mikel Toms), a two-piano recital with Teo Gheorghiu at the Freiburg Festival in Switzerland while undertaken a plethora of recitals in the UK, Italy and the Netherlands.  

However, it was in the spring of 2019 that Ullman cut his first album for Rubicon featuring Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite and Prokofiev’s Six Pieces from Cinderella as well as Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Firebird suites which received rave reviews. In 2022, the label released a second album featuring Franz Liszt’s first and second piano concertos along with his B minor piano sonata with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Litton. 

Portraits of Mind: music by Ian Venables, Ralph Vaughan Williams & George Butterworth in a glorious celebration of Venables' 70th birthday at Temple Music

Temple Church

Ian Venables: Out of the Shadows, Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on Greensleeves, On Wenlock Edge, Love Bade me Welcome, Butterworth: Love Blows as the Wind Blows, Ian Venables: Portraits of Mind; Gwilym Bowen, Gareth Brynmor John, William Vann, Navarra Quartet; Temple Music Foundation at Temple Church
Reviewed 4 November 2025

A celebration of Ian Venables' 70th birthday, a generous programme gave us a chance to hear his wonderful Portraits of Mind alongside the RVW work for which it is a companion, On Wenlock Edge

Temple Music's concert at the Temple Church on Tuesday 4 November 2025 brought together a number of threads. For one, it was a celebration of the 70th birthday of composer Ian Venables with a programme that included two of his song cycles. The evening began with the London premiere of Venables' Out of the Shadows which was commissioned by Robert Venables KC who is a Bencher of Middle Temple and the cycle celebrates Robert Venables' 30th anniversary with his partner Gary Morris. Ian Venables' second work of the evening was Portraits of a Mind which was commissioned by the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth and was intended as a companion piece for RVW's On Wenlock Edge. In a generous programme at Temple Church we heard On Wenlock Edge along with George Butterworth's cycle Love blows as the Wind Blows.

The performers were tenor Gwilym Bowen (standing in for Alessandro Fisher at a few days notice), baritone Gareth Brynmor John, pianist William Vann and the Navarra String Quartet (Benjamin Marquise Gilmore, Eva Aronian, Sascha Bota, Brian O'Kane).