Mark Valencia

Southend-on-Sea

aka Gramps* (*selected users only). Former teacher, working opera critic. Now on BlueSky Social - https://t.co/LoGnqbz3w0

Articles

Royal Academy Opera stages a magical Zauberflöte

1 month ago | bachtrack.com | Mark Valencia

These days, even The Royal Opera bills Mozart’s late Singspiel in Engish as The Magic Flute, but academic institutions like to honour the original German title. It was, then, Die Zauberflöte that opened this week at the Royal Academy of Music. Olivia Clarke conducted a lyrical yet zesty account of this adorable score, while the production by Jamie Manton was on the nose and off the wall. Reader, I loved it.
Renée Fleming sings Strauss favorites with Guggeis and the LPO

1 month ago | bachtrack.com | Mark Valencia

Wagner’s three in one? No, the 40-minute sequence that filled the second half of this London Philharmonic Orchestra concert was not some late meditation on the Holy Trinity by the composer of Parsifal but, rather, a suite created by the conductor Thomas Guggeis by stringing together the Overture and Venusberg Music from Tannhäuser, the Prelude to Act 1 of Lohengrin and the Overture to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
Well cast, high-quality singers in The Royal Opera’s Trovatore revival

1 month ago | bachtrack.com | Mark Valencia

Suspension of disbelief will only get you so far, but what Il trovatore lacks in rational storytelling it makes up for in a wash of irresistible melodies. These, however, haven’t been enough to save it from becoming the black sheep in Verdi’s middle-period flock of triumphs. The opera’s former popularity began to wane when audiences learnt to expect dramatic truthfulness as well as good tunes during a night at the opera, because Verdi’s porridge of a plot is as muddled as it is improbable.
From Wales to Scotland, The Makropulos Affair defies the march of time

2 months ago | bachtrack.com | Mark Valencia

A tale of lawyers and lovers, music and magic... On one level, Janáček’s fable about a woman who outlives her natural lifespan by hundreds of years is a gothic opera of dark whimsy; on another it’s a thought-provoking meditation on the acceptance of ageing, the tenacity of greed and being careful what you wish for.
A dystopian Hansel und Gretel at the RAM

Nov 21, 2024 | bachtrack.com | Mark Valencia |Von Mark Valencia

It’s hard to be sure what Jack Furness wants audiences to take from his new staging of Hansel und Gretel. He is one of this country’s most innovative young directors whose every production is a stimulating prospect, but this account for the RAM of Humperdinck’s esurient opera is an unappetising mess.
A dystopian Hansel und Gretel at the RAM

Nov 20, 2024 | bachtrack.com | Mark Valencia

It’s hard to be sure what Jack Furness wants audiences to take from his new staging of Hansel und Gretel. He is one of this country’s most innovative young directors whose every production is a stimulating prospect, but this account for the RAM of Humperdinck’s esurient opera is an unappetising mess.
Jonathan Miller's Rigoletto, Godfather of opera productions, returns

Oct 30, 2024 | bachtrack.com | Mark Valencia

You must have reached a certain age to remember the opening run of this Rigoletto ‘as if it were yesterday’. Well, 42 years on and several re-viewings (and reviewings) since, I do. Frequently aped but seldom eclipsed, Jonathan Miller’s mafioso retelling was a game-changer. Among other things it gave the UK a novel taste (for its time) of literate Regietheater and with its crowd-pleasing scatter-gun of Godfather references it made operagoers an offer they couldn’t refuse.
The young Fauré given context by Cyrille Dubois and Tristan Raës

Oct 28, 2024 | bachtrack.com | Mark Valencia

With this recital, Cyrille Dubois and Tristan Raës embarked on a long journey of exploration. It will take the French duo several years of Wigmore Hall appearances to complete their survey of Gabriel Fauré’s songs, even though it’s an Everest they’ve already scaled on record – their 3-disc set of the complete mélodies was released by Aparte two years ago. The difference is that each of the pair’s live events will place the composer’s work in a context of music by other hands.
Theatrically poverty-stricken: Blond Eckbert from English Touring Opera

Oct 20, 2024 | bachtrack.com | Mark Valencia

Given the paucity of chances for UK audiences to experience opera outside our main cities, it seems odd that the nation’s core purveyor of lyric theatre to the regions should have selected a work by Judith Weir for its autumn tour. Artistic director Robin Norton-Hale directs with skill and flair, a quartet of fine artists sing the hell out of it and ETO's orchestra creates some gorgeous textures… but why did English Touring Opera choose Blond Eckbert? What’s that all about?
Sensitive stagecraft, directorial rage: Suor Angelica... for one night only at ENO

Sep 28, 2024 | bachtrack.com | Mark Valencia

Easy to give this a miss. At 55 minutes only one third of Il trittico, and the less loved middle sibling at that, this Suor Angelica was trailed by English National Opera as semi-staged and given for a single night in an English translation rather than the original Italian. It must have been a hard sell. In the event we should pity those who swerved, because in a year of inspired directorial brainwaves Annilese Miskimmon’s production is up there with WNO’s Death in Venice.