Andrew Clements
Britten: The Canticles - review
Johnson/Baillieu (Signum Classics) Ben Johnson is rising rapidly through the richly stocked ranks of young British tenors. His musical range is wide (as demonstrated by the current ENO production of La Traviata ), but Johnson has already made a partic
Lulu - review
Welsh National Opera's only previous production of Lulu, in 1971, was the first ever by a British company. The new one is a landmark too, for it opens the first of WNO's thematic seasons planned by its new artistic director David Pountney, who is also resCBSO/Volkov - review
Symphony Hall, Birmingham It is no secret that Ilan Volkov was one of the conductors in the frame to become the CBSO's next music director when Andris Nelsons was appointed in 2007. Since then, Volkov has maintained links with the orchestra as a guest
Eugene Onegin - review
Royal Opera House, London If Eugene Onegin is a study of how an intelligent man can ruin his life by rejecting the woman who could have been his soul mate and killing his best friend in a duel, then Kasper Holten 's production of it is an equally convLa Traviata - review
Coliseum, London When Peter Konwitschny's Traviata was first seen in Graz two years ago , the director claimed that Violetta was "the only human being" in the opera. It's clear from the production's opening moments at the Coliseum that for Konwitschny
Goehr: When Adam Fell; Pastorals; Marching to Carcassonne - review
Serkin/BBC SO/London Sinfonietta/Knussen (Naxos) Compiled from BBC recordings, two of concerts at the Barbican, in London, the other from the studio, this collection of previously unrecorded works makes a valuable late 80th-birthday tribute to Alexander
Weill and Eisler: Songs, etc - review
Kammer/Spring (Capriccio) There's some historical logic in yoking Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler together - both were active in Berlin from the late 1920s, until forced to leave by the Nazis, and both worked with Bertolt Brecht - but musically they were
Mussorgsky: Pictures from an Exhibition; Prokofiev: Sarcasms; Visions Fugitives - review
Steven Osborne (Hyperion) Few of today's leading pianists have a wider range of repertory than Steven Osborne , and it's to the credit of Hyperion that he has been allowed to reflect that range in his discs, instead of being forced into the monoculture