The Rape of Lucretia, HGO, 22 April 2026

Jacksons Lane Theatre

Female Chorus – Olivia Rise Tringham
Male Chorus – Daniel Gray Bell
Lucretia – Emma Roberts
Tarquinius – Stephen Whitford
Collatinus – Oleksii Zasiadko
Junius – Maximilian Catalano
Bianca – Mia Serracino
Lucia – Nikki Martin

Directors – Eleanor Burke, Alex Gotch
Designs – Jennifer Gregory
Lighting – Cheng Keng

HGO Orchestra

Oliver Cope (conductor)

Images: © 2026 LaurentCompagnon

The Rape of Lucretia remains considerably less popular than its predecessor Peter Grimes, but it is to my mind the more interesting work (in Britten’s operatic œuvre second only to The Turn of the Screw). It is, to be sure, more problematical, whether straightforwardly in subject matter or in the ever-disconcerting – to many, downright offensive – Christian moralising of the close, but its musicodramatic construction is more sophisticated, if at times a touch overdetermined in its apparent determination—not only musically to illustrate as many aspects of the libretto as possible but also to treat them as motivically and even harmonically generative. Even that, though, ends up a fruitful part in questions of relationships between words, music, and staging. 

At any rate, this marks another triumph for HGO: excellent in every respect. Perhaps first and foremost, given the nature of the enterprise, every member of the cast shone vocally and dramatically, whether individually or as part of an ensemble both tightknit and protean. Months of hard work have once again paid off handsomely, in an evening all who attended, let alone participated more actively in, will remember for some time. As Lucretia, Emma Roberts had far from the easiest role (not that there necessarily is such a thing). Unsullied virtue may come across as a little bit dull, however admirable. Her dramatic trajectory was planned and projected with great skill, engaging sympathy as well as admiration early on, and grasping the final moments of her life with an uncommon terror and horror that registered all the more powerfully for their lack of exaggeration, all securely rooted in text (of opera and production alike). Stephen Whitford’s Tarquinius trod with similarly uncommon security the tightrope between engaging just enough sympathy to portray the prince as a character at all, and ensuring the horror of his deed and his steps toward it engaged and repelled as they should. He was ‘panther agile and panther virile’, but also crucially a person who was far from sure about what he would do, and who could well have backed out of that: doubtless credit to Eleanor Burke and Alex Gotch’s production too. 

Olivia Rise Tringham and Daniel Gray Bell complemented one another intelligently, dramatically, and movingly as male and female Chorus, their interaction with characters emphatically onstage a welcome addition of human and dramatic complexity. Their way with words – and there are many of them – was irreproachable, both in themselves and in their relationship to music in their vocal lines. Oleksii Zasiadko offered a dark-hued, compassionate Collatinus, nicely supported by Maximilian Catalano’s alert, developing conception of Junius. Mia Serracino as Bianca and Nikki Martin as Lucia distinguished themselves, both in performance and from one another in Lucretia’s household, anchoring the events in a world that might well have remained as it was yet could not, ensemble singing here as elsewhere key to that transformation. All of these young singers showed themselves to possess equal aptitude for and commitment to the dramatic stage. I imagine we shall have good opportunity to see and hear all of them in this context as well as in the concert hall in the years to come. 

I should be similarly surprised if we do not conductor Oliver Cope and the excellent instrumentalists of the HGO Orchestra. There was no need, of course, for any orchestral reduction, however sensitive, in this case. Rather, Britten’s chamber opera could extend itself in visceral claustrophobia – I think such a thing is just about possible – throughout the Jacksons Lane auditorium. The creepiness and atmosphere were well captured, as were moments both of horror and of wonder: the false dawn of Roman sunrise, for instance. Above all, here was the dramatic engine of the entire work, in detail as well as throttle, as well as uncomfortable, even unbearable reference, that fatal late passage with cor anglais solo allusive to and evocative of a Bach Passion or cantata and its theological hinterland in the way direct quotation could not be. Quite what Britten could do, long before Death in Venice, with percussion alone was brought home with equal power. All ensemble members were crucial dramatic participants, as if in a piece of incipient music theatre, Cope’s direction fatal yet human. If I have a cavil – it is really more of a suggestion – it lies with the lack of titles. I can well understand the desire for immediacy, but in such an acoustic, it is not always possible, excellent diction notwithstanding, to discern every word unless one knows it already. It might be worth considering, even for opera in English, as much to help the singers as the audience. 

The production navigated a fruitful, productive balancing act between ritual and realism. Set, I think, at more or less the time of composition, in the wake of the Second World War and its horrendous violence, that was present, as was every possibility to draw connections with the horrors of our own age, without making it the point in itself. This was still very much a human tragedy, perpetrated and endured by human beings, in some cases at least making choices of their own. A simple set sufficed in both starkness and versatility. Tarquinius’s attempt to wash himself before departing, violently to scrub his bare skin of the ‘desire’ that lay within him was horrible yet crucial to watch. His night-time pacing within a small maze had one feel there was a real prospect of another outcome, though of course ultimately there was not. The extinction of Lucretia’s orchids, lit and preserved in boxes throughout until sending her message to Collatinus, proved a moment unanswered and unanswerable. 

A programme link to Solace Women’s Aid is well worth reproducing here, for any who might need the services of or wish to contribute to London’s largest domestic abuse and sexual violence charity.  

Kolesnikov - Schumann, Feldman, and Schubert, 16 April 2026

Wigmore Hall

Schumann: Kinderszenen, op.15

Feldman: Palais de Mari
Schubert: Piano Sonata no.18 in G major, D 894

Pavel Kolesnikov (piano)  

Pavel Kolesnikov is an uncommonly, very particularly interesting pianist and musician. His performances are never ‘standard’ or run-of-the-mill, yet I have no recollection either of finding them perverse or self-regarding. They seem always to take their leave from programming, often remarkable in itself, but as much to the point suggesting a work (sometimes a single piece of movement) might have been performed very differently in a different programme. This recital, with Schumann and Schubert sandwiching Morton Feldman’s final piano work, Palais de Mari, might appear relatively conventional on paper—though how many opportunities do we have to hear that or any Feldman piano music? Schumann and Feldman in particular seemed to inform one another in performances pointing to unsuspected kinship. Yet, whether it were that way around, or more that Kolesnikov’s conception of the three works had prompted the programming in the first place – presumably, some measure of both – artistry and commitment were such, one almost wondered no one had thought of doing this before, whilst the nature of this programming and performing alchemy retained an element of mystery in precisely how and why they complemented one another so well.

Schumann’s Kinderszenen received a captivating performance: rapt, poetic, its contrasts seemingly emanating from the work ‘itself’ rather than imposed upon it from without. Each movement possessed, was even possessed by, its own character, also taking its place in the necessary sequence. Like that of all the best Schumann pianists, Kolesnikov’s voicing was exquisite, yet never for its own sake, telling rather of the wayward, flickering, brilliant subjectivity at work in the score. He built it to a veritable black pearl of a ‘Träumerei’, taken very slowly (presaging Feldman), maintaining line without so much as a stretch mark. It was a case of suspended animation: a canto sospeso even, and indeed he invited us to listen with all the concentration we must lavish on a work by Nono. (It would be wonderful, I suspect, to hear him in such music.) Kinship with Chopin was particularly evident; it was, though, kinship rather than identity, earlier common roots, for instance in Bach, apparent, though again without didactic underlining. This was a truly Romantic, even Jean Paul-like performance to savour.

But then, before the poet spoke, another intervened, perhaps a painter. Feldman’s Palais de Mari takes its leave from an image he saw at the Louvre of a ruined Babylonian palace. Kolesnikov drew us in to a work that is never quite static, though it certainly takes its time. Does one often not, when something strikes one in a museum or gallery? Here, it sounded as if Schumann’s neo-Bachian inner voices attempted with every chord to progress, to develop, yet each time could not: a different, yet mysteriously related form of suspension. A certain similarity, perhaps superficial but perhaps not, to the last of Schoenberg’s op.19 Piano Pieces emerged, albeit on a canvas that owed more to Rothko than to Schoenberg’s very different, highly personal form of expressionism. Minimalist? Yes, in a proper sense, though it does not seem to me to have anything in common with most of the music that has taken that name. I was transfixed, as most of the audience also seemed to be. After which, der Dichter sprach: again, in highly measured, almost prophetic terms. It could hardly have been better judged. 

Highly effective use, unless my ears had deceived me, of the una corda pedal, especially in the Feldman, effected a bridge into the similarly pedalled opening of Schubert’s G major Sonata, D 894. When the full complement of strings was finally heard in the first movement, the suggestion was of an act of Creation: ‘and there was Light’. I also thought of Edgar Reitz’s use of colour in his Heimat series; for me, at least, there was a sense of that haunting by memory, a reminiscence perhaps of Die schöne Müllerin, a staging post even to Winterreise. As so often with Schubert, Dylan Thomas’s ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light’ seemed to haunt pages and performances. It felt slow, though not Richter-like glacial. That might have been an obvious choice post-Feldman, but here there was a sense of self-collection in the wake of the first half, furthered in the final three movements. Kolesnikov’s dynamic range was considerable and always considered; his exquisite tone never hardened, though it certainly impressed, at times in almost Lisztian fashion. Often the performance dealt in opposites, but it mediated too, as does Schubert. This music had lilt too; it danced. Line, lyricism, and proportion were all impeccably judged, again appat emerging from the material itself. Above all, though there was sadness, this was never lachrymose; there was resolve, even strength, to be heard and personally felt.

‘L’Egyptienne’ from Rameau’s G major/minor suite in the Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de Clavecin made for a refreshing, bracing, indeed vigorous encore: as much a reaction as a complement, fashioned in a highly particular burst of enthusiasm one imagined might well have been very different in other circumstances.

Parsifal, Vienna State Opera, 8 April 2026

Images: © Wiener Staatsoper / Michael Pöhn

 

Amfortas – Gerald Finley
Gurnemanz – Franz-Josef Selig
Parsifal – Klaus Florian Vogt
Klingsor – Werner van Mechelen
Kundry – Jennifer Holloway
Titurel – Matheus França
Younger Parsifal – Nikolay Sidorenko
Squires – Florentina Serles, Daria Sushkova, Andrew Turner, Adrian Autard
First Knight of the Grail – Carlo Osuna
Second Knight of the Grail – Alex Ilvakhin
Flowermaidens – Ileana Tonca, Mariia Zherebiateva, Anna Bondarenko, Ilia Staple, Jenni Hietala, Isabel Signoret

Director, designs, costumes – Kirill Serebrennikov
Lighting – Franck Evin
Assistant director – Evgeny Kulagin
Assistant designer – Olga Pavliuk
Assistant costume designer – Tatina Dolmatovskaya
Video and photography – Aleksey Fokin, Yurii Karih
Fight coordinator – Ran Arthur Braun
Dramaturgy – Sergio Morabito
Actors

Vienna State Opera Chorus (chorus master: Thomas Lang)
Vienna State Opera Orchestra
Axel Kober (conductor)

More by happy accident than design, my Easter Monday Rheingold in Salzburg was followed only two evenings later in Vienna by Parsifal from the same director, Kirill Serebrennikov. Whilst the former marked the first instalment, if the third performance, of a new Ring, the latter was the final performance in a revival of a production first seen in 2021 and reviewed here at its first revival last year. My thoughts on the production largely remain similar to 2025, though there will doubtless have been small changes, given a largely new cast, Klaus Florian Vogt the only singer to reprise a principal role. I shall doubtless also have seen different things and reacted differently to what I saw, so I shall recapitulate, without reading my former review, before proceeding to those performances. Conductor Axel Kober remained in the pit, as of course did the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, although how many players will have been the same I do not know. 

Serebrennikov’s role as a film as well as stage director is, as in Das Rheingold, apparent throughout. In this vision of Monsalvat correctional facility (the ‘l’ given by a cross) we are made to think and feel, if not quite as Wagner would have had us do – how can we ever know? – then in a way certainly preferable to any moribund attempt to imitate, the threadbare letter mistaken for the spirit, just as the ‘l’ Cross has almost vanished when we (and the characters) return for the third act to a building and institution that remains even after its initial purpose has died. So far, so Wagnerian one, might say, penetrating in historical decay at least to the essence of this Grail community tale. In some ways, this is Kundry’s tale: she as photojournalist documents the regime and its hardships, writing a lengthy investigative (exploitative?) story for the glossy magazine ‘Schloss’ managed by Klingsor, which may or may not contribute to institutional demise. 

The question of gaze is interesting: there is clearly something strongly homoerotic to the film visions not only of the young Parsifal (Nikolay Sidorenko) revisited or remembered by his later self (Vogt also on stage, a ghost who sings). ‘Er ist schön, der Knabe!’ as Klingsor cannot help but admit. Whether the prison activities, physical training, ‘play’ wrestling and all, themselves partake in such homoeroticism will partly be a matter for the beholder. There is, however, no question in the case of the swan, another young inmate who approaches the inexperienced Parsifal on film, only swiftly to be felled, his body taken away by guards whose relationship to the prisoners, not least old lag and tattoist Gurnemanz, is anthropologically fascinating if occasionally narratively tricky. Lingering shower shots as the pure fool cleanses himself tell one tale, which may or may not be concluded by filmic resurrection for the swan (a prison nickname perhaps?) at the close. 

But we should not forget that, if Gurnemanz is Wagner’s narrator, Kundry is in many ways Serebrennikov’s. Not only do prisoners act up for her, young Parsifal learning to flex his biceps in imitation of others by the time of his release from what seems to have been a week-long sentence, days recorded on the film, at the close of the first act. But she is photographer and writer, clearly a more serious as well as successful figure than fashionista Flowermaidens who get nowhere with their lust, when young Parsifal comes to the office, ritually stripped and bashful, to be reclothed in tighty whitie Calvin Kleins and still tighter black leather trousers. Kundry has her way beyond Wagner’s kiss, if not the whole way, whilst the older Parsifal, powerless to intervene in a past that is past, attempts to save his younger self. So the gaze represented, arguably embodied too, extends beyond the homoerotic, even beyond the queer, to the female too. Whatever names we may wish to accord this or these, such orientations and identities stand(s) in opposition to singular, heteronormative patriarchy, here a quasi-monastic prison in itself. Notably, there is no Voice from Above at the end: it is Kundry herself, less released by death than released by life. 

Kober’s conducting was largely brisk and no-nonsense. It was less overtly an ‘interpretation’ than many might conductors might give, though in so complex a score there is unquestionable art in giving the impression of letting it and the wonderful Vienna orchestra speak for themselves. If there were times when greater variation in tempo on both micro- and macro-levels might have been desirable or at least interesting, there were great dynamic range and considerable timbral variety – if not that of, say, a Barenboim – to the orchestra doing what it does best. The chorus was outstanding – surely outstandingly trained too – throughout; it would be tempting to take that for granted, but its marriage of precision and heft was not the least of the evening’s achievements. 

Vogt and Sidorenko gave tireless, complementary performances as Parsifal, their interaction and non-interaction moving as well as suggestive. Hearing Vogt in this role almost inevitably summons memories – for those who have heard it anyway – of his Lohengrin, an historico-genealogical layering that is fruitful if not necessary. This Parsifal must play the game we play yet retain freshness on the way to experience, far from the only instance of work and production gaining in turn from their interaction. Some dislike Vogt’s voice – excessively, I cannot help but think – but that is surely neither here nor there. He reminds us that he is justly a major artist in this repertoire, has been for many years, and shows no sign of going anywhere yet. Jennifer Holloway will sing Adriano in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus’s first ever Rienzi this summer. Her Kundry was well acted, well sung, increasing in overt confidence in fine parallel with Serebrennikov’s concept. Franz-Josef Selig could not reasonably be faulted as Gurnemanz, marriage of words and music an object lesson. The greater ambiguity, even occasional malevolence, of the character in this production was subtly suggested without caricature. Gerald Finley’s Amfortas made a similarly intelligent impression, unquestionably founded in and at ease with Wagner’s words and their changing meaning. Werner van Mechelen made his mark not only as Klingsor but as this Klingsor, Smaller roles were all well taken, often illuminatingly so. Like Kundry, probably Parsifal too, Wagner’s Bühnenweihfestspiel again found itself released by the new life staging and performances can and did impart.

Salzburg Easter Festival (3): Das Rheingold, 6 April 2026

Felsenreitschule

Images: Frol Podlesyni
Performers: Olade Roland Rodolpho Sagbo, Delavallet Bidiefono, Roméo Bron Bi

Director – Kirill Serebrennikov
Set designs – Kirill Serebrennikov, Olga Pavluk
Costumes – Kirill Srebrennikov, Slavna Martinovic, Shaiva Nikvashvili
Lighting – Sergey Kucher
Choreography – Ivan Estegneev, Delavallet Bidiefono
Dramaturgy – Daniil Orlov

Wotan – Christian Gerhaher
Donner – Gihoon Kim
Froh – Thomas Atkins
Loge – Brenton Ryan
Alberich – Leigh Melrose
Mime – Thomas Cilluffo
Fasolt – Le Bu
Fafner – Patrick Guetti
Fricka – Catriona Morison
Freia – Sarah Brady
Erda – Jasmin White
Woglinde – Louise Foor
Wellgunde – Yajie Zhange
Flosshilde – Jess Dandy

Performer Compagnie Baninga

Actors, Performers

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Kirill Petrenko (conductor)

Determined to bring Wagner and Berlin Philharmonic opera to his native Salzburg, Herbert von Karajan inaugurated the city’s Easter (for the greater part, Holy Week) Festival in 1967. It began with a Ring (Die Walküre first), partly co-produced with New York’s Metropolitan Opera and directed by Karajan himself, which formed the foundation for Karajan’s Deutsche Grammophon audio recording. The Ring returned to Salzburg under Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic from 2007-10, in Stéphane Braunschewig’s production, given also in Aix. Now in 2026, with the triumphant return of the orchestra to Salzburg, the Easter Festival’s third Ring begins, in a co-production with Copenhagen’s Royal Danish Opera, conducted by Kirill Petrenko and directed by Kirill Serebrennikov. 

Fafner (Patrick Guetti)

I say triumphant, since there can be no doubting that the orchestra proved the brightest stars of all in this Rheingold’s firmament. I doubt the score can ever have been better played at the level of execution—and at this stage of my Wagnerian life, I have heard it a good few times. Depth of tone, balance, and pinpoint accuracy were second to none; and, as I have noted a few times with the BPO under Kirill Petrenko, they (or their conductor) show a greater willing to draw on the wisdom and experience of their long history, a dark, more Furtwänglerian sound, closer to that of the Staatskapelle Berlin, than tended to be heard from Rattle, Claudio Abbado, or indeed Karajan proving the baseline – sometimes even the bass line – in core Austro-German repertoire. Petrenko’s Wagner conducting has also progressed in leaps and bounds not only since he conducted the Ring at Bayreuth, but also from his Wagner in Munich. Not that the former was poor, far from it, but the theatre brings its own, notorious challenges for a director and, more to the point, the conception often lacked metaphysical and, in many ways, physical depth. There is no doubting Petrenko’s grasp of the work’s vast architecture, heard and communicated as if (almost) in a single breath – not quite Daniel Barenboim, though no one else has been this century, arguably since Furtwängler himself. With this orchestra as his collaborators, though, he can draw on a greater, multi-dimensional canvas, gaining harmonic depth, timbral variegation, and a more varied, yet always firmly directed narrative thrust. If the strings sounded as of old (or so one could fancy), the woodwind arguably sounded more variegated and characterful than ever, the brass both more tender and more malevolent as necessary (and much more). Underwhelming anvils, poorly integrated were a pity, but they often are; the technical difficulties here lie far beyond a merely ‘musical’ issue. 

Froh (Thomas Atkins), Wotan (Christian Gerhaher), Loge (Brenton Ryan)

On, then, to Serebrennikov’s vision and its realisation. A post-apocalyptic setting in the/a potential future, presumably following a cataclysm such as we shall encounter at the close, may not be ‘groundbreaking’. We have been there before in the Ring, perhaps most celebratedly with Harry Kupfer, let alone in other works. It is difficult to imagine, at least until it happens, what could, at least on that broad, outline scale could be by now, although arguably Frank Castorf achieved something of that kind in his 2013-17 Ring (conducted initially by Petrenko). It is surely, by the same token, especially apposite right now, at a time when monsters such as Trump and Netanyahu are threatening to unleash still worse than they have already. The devil and, just perhaps, the angels will of course lie in the detail, and here Serebrennikov’s conception offers much promise—as well as certain caveats. It is always difficult, indeed impossible, to tell from a single instalment, although one can always tell if all has gone horribly wrong. In so bleak a landscape, visited both on stage and above on Serebrennikov’s own film, should one start entirely from scratch or recall the before times? It may not be either/or; indeed, there will be choices to be made from which or, better, whose before times. The question nonetheless retains some validity. The gods seem bound to a past that may lie beyond recovery; arguably they do by at least the final scene of Rheingold anyway, perhaps earlier still. In light, uncoloured, perhaps even ragged robes, they affect poses, probably attempt solutions as if an Attic (more than Teutonic?) past were present. All they seem positively, promisingly to possess is the technology of a greenhouse to cultivate Freia’s apples of immortality. We do not so much as glimpse Valhalla; perhaps it does not exist. 

Rhinemaidens (Yajie Zhang, Jess Dandy, Louise Foor)

For this is clearly Alberich’s story more than theirs. Whether that will be the case throughout the Ring, we do not know, but it seems unarguable at least for this Rheingold. The film begins and continues with his quest across a barren, Icelandic landscape, both harking back to the Eddas and representing the problem, even the terror of the present. Where he is heading remains unclear, but when he appears onstage we recognise him and this doubling (like others between singers and actors, purely onstage) proves dramatically enabling and productive, without provoking confusion. This is a world in which religion, like all else, must or at least may be recreated, the gods and their heroes – viewed as ceramic memories at the close, hardly promising for the future – facing just the replacement Alberich threatens will come from him and his horde. And so, he builds a cult of his own, enthroned under a canopy, learning from those who have oppressed him, including an able trio of Rhinemaidens replete with actor-provided tentacles of the erotic urge (liebesgelüste) Wagner divined in Alberich. Film turns to fire and even  disintegrates, though recovers, possibly presaging the future's future.

Whether ‘borrowing’ from African cultures onstage is the best way to go about some of this may be questioned. Questions of appropriation or downright (neo-)colonialism – primitive or primitivism? – are complicated by the engagement of African dancers under the responsive choreography (and dance) of Delavallet Bidiefono. These artists have clearly contributed, to my eyes highly productively. So too have Recycle Group (Andrey Blokhin and Georgy Kuznetsov) in provision of materials. Matters are not so clearcut here as they might initially seem, though the suspicion of ethnographic tourism lingers even when one learns of the creditable research that has gone into the production from reclaimed materials and office rubbish of a reenvisaged Egungun masquerade dress for Loge. His colourful world, what appears to be a reinvention of magic – what else is there in such an environment – makes quite an impression. What lies within the portable hut his double guards remains a mystery, as doubtless it must. The questions it provokes may prove key to the whole enterprise. What seems to mark a remythologising of the Ring bucks recent practice. The politics remain; how could they not? They do not, bar the overall post-catastrophic setting, laudable environmentalism in production values, and the coming of the Global South, seem to be paramount conceptually. Perhaps that will change, or perhaps it is the intention: something approaching a new direction in itself in the twenty-first century. But will this be Wieland Wagner with a world tour and integrated recycling, or rather more than that? All eyes, or at least mine, lie on Alberich and Loge—rather than on Wotan. 

Alberich (Leigh Melrose)

That shift of emphasis was paralleled, less fortunately, in terms of singing. That Loge might steal the show in Das Rheingold is far from unprecedented; it is almost to be expected. Brenton Ryan’s quicksilver portrayal was nonetheless far more than a reflection of the work, vocal and stage presence combining (in collaboration with his redder ‘double’) to represent something both primal and advanced, whether instrumental reason or sham magic dramatically ambiguous. Leigh Melrose’s Alberich was again a true animating as well as animating presence, his use of words and music in Wagner’s radical alchemy not only tracing but helping form the narrative. Christian Gerhaher, by contrast, was, like many of the full gods, oddly static. This, again, was partly a matter of the production, but there were times when he seemed parted, resorting to barking reminiscent of aspects of Karajan’s Fischer-Dieskau but without his commanding presence. Gerhaher is a superlative artist as a singer, but not so much of an actor, and it is difficult to consider Wotan, even in this ‘preliminary evening’, his ideal role. Whether he will continue in Walküre and Siegfried – Fischer-Dieskau did not – we shall see. Le Bu’s Fasolt and Patrick Guetti’s Fafner were formidable giants, offering portrayals with considerable psychological depth as well as necessary force. Erdas rarely disappoint and Jasmin White was no exception; theirs was a moment that cast its shadow over all that was to come—and presumably that is still to come. Thomas Cilluffo’s characterful Mime promised well for the greater stint to come (assuming he continues in the role). Even here, then, much judgement must necessarily be provisional, but the best onstage and all in the pit augur well indeed.

 

Salzburg Easter Festival (2): BPO/Harding - Haydn, 5 April 2026

 

Grosses Festspielhaus

The Creation, Hob.XXI:2

Hanna-Elisabeth Müller (soprano)

Andrew Staples (tenor)

Konstantin Krimmel (baritone)

Bavarian Radio Chorus (director: Peter Dijkstra)

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Daniel Harding (conductor)

Images: Monika Rittershaus

One might, somewhat fancifully, think of Haydn’s two late oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons, as the counterparts of their time to Mahler’s Eighth Symphony. That thought briefly entered my mind prior to this Easter Sunday performance of The Creation, if only because the Salzburg Easter Festival had given Mahler’s work two days earlier. A more meaningful comparison would lie with Handel’s oratorios, especially as given a little while after the composer’s death in Handel ‘Commemorations’ at Westminster Abbey from 1784 onwards. Haydn attended the sixth of these, ‘by command and under the patronage of their Majesties’ in 1791, boasting more than a thousand performers (more, then, than the perennially misnamed ‘Symphony of a Thousand’. According to an early, albeit not especially reliable biographer, Giuseppe Carpani, Haydn ‘confessed … that when he heard the music of Hendl [sic] in London, he was struck as if he had been put back to the beginning of his studies … He meditated on every note and drew from these most learned scores the essence of true musical grandeur.’  It is at any rate likely that Haydn then resolved to write a successor work, which he did in collaboration with Gottfried van Swieten back in Vienna in 1797 and 1798. Both oratorios exist in German and English forms. (See here for further discussion.) This Salzburg performance, naturally, was given in German as Die Schöpfung and with musical forces on the smaller side from the premiere, although sizes of chorus and orchestra varied significantly during his lifetime, including performances in which one way or another he participated.

 

The opening ’Representation of Chaos’ sounded duly radical and rigorous in the hands Daniel Harding and the Berlin Philharmonic. It is not entirely without precedent, especially when considers the introductions to Haydn’s London Symphonies, but this is on quite a different scale, of duration and harmonic adventure, as befits the oratorio’s scale and subject—and so it sounded here, darkly mysterious, with teeming anticipations of potential life from the ever-outstanding Berlin woodwind emanating from and sinking back into the terror of the void. I have heard broader, more beautiful introductions, not least in classic recorded form from this orchestra under Herbert von Karajan, but it is an open question whether should Chaos sound beautiful. Raphael’s opening recitative lacked nothing in broadness, imparting a fine sense of suspense. The coming of Light did all that it should, fitting indeed on the day of Resurrection, followed by a ringing ‘Und Gott sah das Licht…’ from Andrew Staples as Uriel. Spring, it seemed, was here—as, at last, it had been outside earlier in the day. Fallen angels had their moment, orchestral as well as choral, in the number to come, strings’ slithering descent especially worthy of note, and Staples’s shading, like that of all soloists, was finely gauged without pedantry, momentary darkness evoked on the word ‘Schatten’. On the second day, Konstantin Krimmel and the orchestra had us feel as well as hear in their opening recitative storms, rain, snow and other consequences of the Almighty’s creative division of the waters. Hanna-Elisabeth Müller’s vibrato in Gabriel’s ensuing ‘Mit Staunen sieht das Wunderwerk‘, taken slower than usual and with an interesting old-Handelian sturdiness, was a little on the broad side, but my ears soon adjusted and that ceased to be an issue after this number.

Our three angels announced in their announcing, we could enjoy the delights to come, Krimmel in particular offering an outstandingly keen sense of narration, at times confidingly so, in fine partnership with the orchestra and Harding. Nothing we heard was ever less than vividly communicative and lyrical. Gear changes such as that towards the end of ‘Rollend in schäumenden Wellen’ might on paper have seemed a little odd, but the transformation in atmosphere effected worked very well in practice, with ample justification in the libretto. Likewise Harding’s tempo shift in the trio ‘In holder Anmut steh’n’ for Raphael’s darting of fish. Ornamentation was stylish from all concerned, orchestral soloists included. Indeed, there was at least much to savour from the Berlin Philharmonic – Wenzel Fuchs’s delectable clarinet in ‘Auf starkem Fittiche’, cellos to die for in ‘Mit Würd und Hoheit angetan’, those three flutes of Eden at the opening of the Third Part led by Emmanuel Pahud, and so on – as from anywhere else. The Bavarian Radio Chorus was irreproachable, irresistible throughout, echoing Handel in ‘Vollendet ist das große Werk’, whilst ravishing woodwind reminded us this was a post-Mozartian world.

 

A sense of wonder in literal awakening was unmistakeably evoked in the Third Part, further awakening to be heard, equally unmistakeable yet without any crude exaggeration, in the duet of Adam (Krimmel) and Eve (Müller). The world created had come truly into its prelapsarian, if precarious own. There were surprises throughout, even here, as for instance in Harding’s slow tempo for the opening of that duet, sustained throughout. There is, more often than not, no ‘right’ answer to such questions; different performances offer different pathways. Here, kinship with The Magic Flute was readily, meaningfully communicated. In the only secco recitative of any length in the entire work – we are in the realm of humans – the luxury of hearing a cellist of the stature of Bruno Delepelaire alongside the also excellent fortepianist Florian Birsak was almost worth the price of admission alone. Ultimately, it was of course Haydn’s invention, its optimism far from naïve but rather that of a good Catholic who had seen and heard it all and knew something still lay beyond the wars ravaging his Europe, that offered the greatest balm. Amidst the carnage of 2026, we must hope that Haydn, his co-creator Swieten, and all those voices, musical, literary, and theological, who helped shape this enduring masterpiece may yet have a point. That we could hope at all suggests that may just be so.

Salzburg Easter Festival (1): BPO/Petrenko - Mahler, 3 April 2026

Grosses Festspielhaus

Images: Monika Rittershaus

Symphony no.8 in E-flat major

Jacquelyn Wagner, Sarah Wegener, Liv Redpath (sopranos)

Beth Taylor, Fleur Barron (mezzo-sopranos)

Benjamin Bruns (tenor)

Gihoon Kim (baritone)

Le Bu (bass)

Berlin Radio Chorus (director: Justus Barleben)

Salzburg Bach Choir (director: Michael Schneider)

Salzburg Festival and Theatre Children’s Choir (directors: Wolfgang Götz and Regina Sgier)

Tölz Boys’ Choir (director: Marco Barbon)

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Kirill Petrenko (conductor)

If it initially felt more than a little strange, even heretical, to hear Mahler’s Eighth Symphony on Good Friday, this outstanding Salzburg Easter Festival performance from assembled soloists, choirs, the Berlin Philharmonic, and Kirill Petrenko swept all before it, doubts included—or perhaps better, incorporating such theological doubts into the experience of those listening 115 years on from the work’s premiere. A little under four years from the outbreak of the First World War, that age may seem, simultaneously, both strangely close to and increasingly distant from the insanity of the world’s current predicaments. Mahler was no aestheticist; this rightly offered no refuge. But nor did it hold up anything so predictable as a mere mirror. No audience member will have experienced it in quite the same way, but all will surely have been edified, exhilarated, and far more besides. The indifference, at best, in which so many contemporary Mahler performances proceed was never an option here. Petrenko’s way with the work was often surprising, yet never arbitrarily so. It was, as is typical of this artist, a deeply thought-out reading that challenged, confounded, and ultimately, dare I say, came close to that thing we may still, hope against hope, consider to be transcendence.

Beth Taylor (standing), Jacquelyn Wagner and Fleur Barron on either side

I shall admit to having had my doubts earlyish on in the First Part. The organ sound was far from ideal. More fundamentally, I wondered quite where the performance was heading, with highly contrasting blocks of material: a brisk and lithe choral section seeming almost underwhelming, followed by spacious, operatic solo singing that seemed perhaps closer to Berlioz or Verdi than Mahler. Unity of soloists and chorus intriguingly suggested something akin to the world of nineteenth-century oratorio – Dvořák’s Stabat Mater came to mind – but I began to ask myself: where is the symphonism in this? I should have known better, since Petrenko had taken a highly original view that yet proved compelling both in the moment and in retrospect. Chamber-music playing – yes, in this movement – suggested an affinity with the Berlin Philharmonic Wagner of Herbert von Karajan, reminding us of the roots of this festival, revisited this year in a new Ring, but more importantly offering a fascinating new perspective (for me, at least) on music I had thought I knew well.

Liv Redpath (Mater gloriosa)

It goes without saying, yet doubtless should not, that the Berlin Philharmonic’s chamber playing, just as much as any titanic, surround-sound barnstorming, proved superlative and indeed enlightening. When Petrenko whipped up a storm, he truly did so; when the choirs sang, seating arrangements only enhanced a musical understanding that reached back to the antiphonies of ancient polyphony. (I thought, perhaps idiosyncratically, of Wagner’s Palm Sunday Palestrina.) Where, though, was the Mahler, I might perhaps have asked earlier on. It was increasingly clear, again both in the moment and in retrospect. Ghosts from his earlier symphonies increasingly haunted the music: liminal passages from the Rückert symphonies, ecstasy from the Second and Third, and more than a little Wunderhorn later on. And when the moment of return arrived, any idea that this conception was not, among other things, symphonic through and through was dispelled once and for all. If there was something disturbing about hearing those cries of ‘Gloria!’ on this of all days, there was something utterly thrilling to it too: a tribute to Mahler’s syncretic vision, itself reimagined in further syncretism, rather than any banal blasphemy. All came together, as it must, yet in at least the last two performances I have heard of this symphony, it utterly failed to do so; moreover, it came together in a display of long-range thinking that made complete sense of the progression we had heard so far, also anticipating that to come.

The introduction to the Second Part is, of course, one of the most extraordinary musical landscapes in the entire canon. In that, it follows Goethe and, for some of us, even goes beyond him. Bar prolonged electronic interference from what I assume was a malfunctioning hearing aid, this wanted nothing. Here, Petrenko and the Berliners offered their very own – rather, Mahler’s – rite of spring, initially cold yet melting, suggestive of the snow one can still view here on the Alpine landscape visible from all quarters in the city, yet in its translucency also partaking in a further liminality already hinting at the very different heights to come. At that moment when they must, strings dug in, in a way one fancies they must have for Mahler in 1910 Munich, yet probably did not. It was, at any rate, both expertly and movingly shaped. When choir and echo entered, it was likewise as if we heard chamber choirs writ large, that translucency extended not only to song but to words and verse themselves.

 

As other persons had their say, we recognised them both as of old and quite anew, classical yet contemporary: the ideal for any performance, as Daniel Barenboim (who surely would have had the measure of this work he never conducted) might have told us—and Pierre Boulez, who certainly did on both counts, very much did tell us, both in words and music. The early stages of the rest of this part truly imparted a sense of ascent both physical and metaphysical, as if partaking in a musical-cosmological demonstration of the mediaeval Great Chain of Being. Gihoon Kim’s excellent Pater ecstaticus was, yes, ecstatic, but also clearly heartfelt, presaging the deep (in every sense) love extolled and embodied by the Pater profundus of Le Bu. The word ‘Kettenschmerz’, towards the close of his first solo, he almost spat out, without slightest sacrifice to beauty of tone or deeper meaning. This is clearly a rare talent: an artist new to me but whom I hope to hear much more from. Beth Taylor’s Mulier Samaritana revealed a fine, Erda-like contralto-like mezzo, equally at home with the alchemy that turns words into something approaching music drama. Jacquelyn Wagner offered a thrillingly, operatic turn for Magna peccatrix. First among an extraordinary team of equals in the First Part, Sarah Wagener sounded here, quite rightly, more oratorio-like in the part of Una poenitentium, without in any sense refusing the inheritance from her composer namesake. Speaking of whom, the Siegfried-like Doctor Marianus of Benjamin Bruns, rang out in uncommon harmony with the orchestra. All soloists, as well as all choirs, contributed to the greater whole in outstanding fashion, whether the Third Symphony’s Bimm-Bamm sublimation in our corps of younger angels, Fleur Barron’s imploring, inwardly strong Maria Aegyptiaca, or the pre- and post-Parsifalian voice from above, Mater gloriosa, of Liv Redpath, both necessary response and necessarily sweet.

 

All the while, Petrenko proved, after Mahler, our (pen-)ultimate guide. There was no more a weak link in the symphonic logic of this vast structure than there was in the playing of the Berlin Philharmonic or the singing of our onstage cosmogony. All took its place with a Wagnerian inevitability that belied the elements of crowd control, however unseen and unheard, which must always inform a performance of this symphony. When, heralded by a clarion-like yet tender return for Doctor Marianus, the Chorus mysticus entered, it was with a magic that seemed to lie somewhere between Mozart and Nono. Disbelief in the celebrated and/or notorious last line of Goethe could be suspended, because one felt one actually believed; perhaps even in the old canard, credo quia absurdum. There was, though, nothing absurd to a coronation of queens and princes of heaven alike, even on Good Friday. Whether or no this were the beyond we glimpsed, none could doubt that we felt we had.

 

LSO CO/Martín - Mozart, 29 March 2026

LSO St Luke’s

Bassoon Concerto in B-flat major, KV 191/186e
Horn Concerto no.3 in E-flat major, KV 447
Sinfonia concertante for violin, viola, and orchestra, KV 364

Benjamin Marquise Gilmore (violin)

Eivind Ringstad (viola)

Daniel Jemison (bassoon)

Timothy Jones (horn)

LSO Chamber Orchestra

Jaime Martín (conductor)

Images: Mark Allan

On the one hand, there can never be enough Mozart, whether that refer to works or performances; on the other, there can readily be more than enough, should the performances not at least come close to perfection. This LSO Chamber Orchestra concert oddly fell somewhere in the middle: a pleasant enough way to spend an hour and a quarter on a Sunday afternoon, lacking in the grotesqueries that disfigure most contemporary Mozart orchestral performances, yet also lacking in much to enable one to answer quite what the point of the concert had been, beyond giving LSO principals a chance to perform the works in question. All too often, what we heard sounded more like an accomplished run-through, skating on the Mozartian surface rather than plumbing its depths.   

Performances of the Bassoon Concerto – the only one that has survived, though Mozart may have written four more – are thin enough on the ground that this offered its own justification. There was much more than that: sensible tempi, clean, well phrased and articulated playing from soloist Daniel Jemison, and a largely cultivated sound from the orchestra. Here, it is probably fair to say that there are fewer depths for a conductor to plumb, and Jaime Martín offered decent enough leadership, though I could not help but think a little more insight might have been shown at his end. In the minuet-rondo finale in particular, less slow than sluggish, the orchestra sounded a touch reticent, even non-committal. Jamison’s playing was nonetheless excellent. Moreover, the opening Allegro sounded properly poised on the Rococo-Classical cusp; the slow movement enabled Jamison to show beguiling command of the long Mozart line. 

The Third Horn Concerto with Timothy Jones told a not dissimilar story, though its greater musical substance – not to diminish the Bassoon Concerto, but to elevate this – made relatively minor shortcomings more obvious, more keenly felt. Again, tempi were well chosen, and it was a relief to be spared fashionable ‘period’ mannerisms. Mozart needs more, though, and certainly here. He often received it, Martín and the orchestra pointing a syncopation here or a modulation there early on to good effect. A necessary sense of development was indeed strongest in the first movement. The slow movement unfolded without fuss, if occasionally with slight blandness, Jones’s lyrical playing not always matched by the orchestra. Still, one sensed Mozart’s tonal mastery, every inch the equal of Haydn and Beethoven’s. Jones’s navigation of the balance between hunting ebullience and subtle sorrow was sound in the finale, but alas Martín’s direction of the orchestra proved rather listless. Mozart, alas, is very difficult to get right; there is nowhere to hide, and sometimes it showed. 

The Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola is, of course, the acknowledged masterpiece of the trio. Here, expectations were highest. Although there was nothing especially wrong with the performance, again aspects of the orchestral direction in particular once again fell short enough to provoke slight disappointment. Violinist Benjamin Marquise Gilmore and violist Eivind Ringstad were excellent throughout, as was much orchestral playing, although there were some frays at the edges and a few too many phrases and paragraphs that did not tug the heartstrings as they might. The first movement started promisingly, Martín’s direction having regained the direction it had lost in the finale of the previous concerto. The great crescendo spoke for itself. solo playing was warm, lyrical, and wonderfully responsive. If there were a few instances of pulling the music round, emphasising the end of a phrase a little too much, we have all heard worse, far worse. The slow movement flowed nicely, but amiably; here, above all, we need to hear a grave, tragic beauty that flickered only intermittently. A bright, well-shaped collegial finale arguably offered greater tenderness, though the sense of loss related too much to what had preceded it rather than to emotional depths. If few Mozart performances offer the perfection Sir Colin Davis brought to the composer not so very long ago, with this orchestra and others, ultimately they should.