Hattie Butterworth

London

Advocacy, investigation | Cellist | Founder @tmdtapodcast | Editor @operanow @choirandorgan | all opinions my own, not that of the publications I work at 🏳️‍🌈

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Articles

La Scala announces Myung-whun Chung as its new Music Director

3 weeks ago | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

Milan-based opera company Teatro alla Scala has announced its next Music Director as South Korean and conductor Myung-whun Chung, beginning in autumn 2026. Chung succeeds Riccardo Chailly, who will remain in post until the latter half of 2026. His contract is set to run until 2030, at which point hi will be 77-years-old.
ENO announces new Music Director alongside 25/26 season

3 weeks ago | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

ENO has announced its new 2025/2026 season alongside naming German conductor André de Ridder as its new music director, following on from Martyn Brabbins who resigned in 2023 following ENO's proposal to axe 19 orchestral positions. Currently Generalmusikdirektor (GMD) of the Theater Freiburg, De Ridder's previous work with ENO includes conducting the premieres of Gerald Barry’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kantin 2005, and Michel van der Aa’s Sunken Garden in 2013.
Longborough Festival founder dies aged 83

1 month ago | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

Founder of the Cotswolds-based Longborough Festival Opera Martin Graham has died aged 83. Graham established the festival alongside his wife Lizzie in the grounds of their home in 1991 as Banks Fee Opera. Longborough Festival Opera has since grown into an established opera company, situated in the heart of the Cotswolds, with an annual season taking place in a purpose-built opera house seating 500.
London Catholic church hosts concert commemorating martyrs of the gay community

2 months ago | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

Farm Street Church, a Catholic Jesuit church in Mayfair, is hosting a choral concert on Saturday commemorating those in the LGBTQ+ community who have lost their lives for being in same-sex and queer relationships, this Saturday 5 April. Entitled 'A Requiem for Those Who Had None', the concert will interweave music and stories, performed by LGBTQ ensemble The Fourth Choir.
Venables: We Are The Lucky Ones at Dutch National Opera | Live Review

2 months ago | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

The cast of We Are The Lucky Ones | Credit: De Nationale Opera, Koen BroosPhilip Venables and Ted Huffman know how to pack a punch. These concept kings of opera have wowed the world with chamber opera Denis and Katya back in 2019, then The Faggots And Their Friends Between Revolutions which began in Aix in 2023. This project for Amsterdam’s Opera Forward Festival is their largest yet, their first ‘orchestral opera’ with a score that witnesses Venables at his grandest and most dense.
Verdi: Il trovatore at the Royal Opera | Live Review

Feb 27, 2025 | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

Angieszka Rehlis as Azucena in Il trovatore | Credit: Camilla GreenwellStairs, in your multitudes. Adele Thomas’s Trovatore is a workout that stuns the stage in the first half and leaves much to be desired in the second. Verdi’s score grabs us from the start and Thomas sails us through the first act choruses with gripping drama. Four acrobatic dancers create a animalistic creepy backdrop to the drama, cartwheeling through the Anvil’s chorus and bringing some dark humor.
WNO announces new season

Feb 18, 2025 | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

Hattie Butterworth Welsh National Opera has today announced the productions in its 2025/2026 season, a season which marks the Company’s 80th anniversary. The year includes a new production of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman during the spring season by Welsh director Jack Furness, and a new production of Puccini’s Tosca, by Edward Dick originally seen at Opera North in 2018, during the Autumn Season. Welsh-Ukranian soprano Natalya Romaniw returns to sing the title role of Tosca.
Mark Anthony Turnage: Festen at the Royal Opera | World Premiere Live Review

Feb 12, 2025 | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

The cast of Festen at the Royal Opera | Photo: Marc Brenner‘It’s gone quiet – that’s because everyone’s enjoying their food!’ We can all agree that the general British public can be grating. But rarely is this irritation projected onto an opera stage and set to music with such vivid exposition. Soup flavours are requested, small talk commences and we greet each other often with blinding falsity.
Introverting with age — Things Musicians Don't Talk About

Feb 7, 2025 | thingsmusiciansdonttalkabout.com | Hattie Butterworth

‘No you aren’t – you can’t be!’ is what many people say when I tell them I am introverted. So I doubt myself, second guess the way I come across and think about ways I could appear more like the person I feel inside. But the outer version of me and the inner version differ vastly. On the outside I am confident, talkative and open. But when I’m alone, the colours are more vibrant in my life.
Conductor Daniel Barenboim announces Parkinson's diagnosis

Feb 7, 2025 | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

Pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim has publicly disclosed that he has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. The 81-year-old musician, known for his profound influence on classical music and commitment to peace through cultural exchange, shared the news in a statement, acknowledging the challenges ahead while expressing his dedication to music. 'I have been living with Parkinson’s disease for some time now,' Barenboim said.