Roy Westbrook

1 week ago | bachtrack.com | Roy Westbrook

Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa is a rare sighting in this country, even perhaps outside Russia, unless a Russian company tours with it. So a new production from Grange Park Opera is welcome, especially when as successfully staged as David Pountney’s account is here. The Cossack leader Mazeppa is not portrayed in his heroic younger days, as depicted by Byron and Liszt, but is now the ageing Hetman trusted by Tsar Peter the Great, but secretly plotting Ukraine’s independence from Russia.

1 week ago | bachtrack.com | Roy Westbrook

Handel’s mid-1720s sequence of three of his greatest operas, Giulio Cesare, Tamerlano and Rodelindais a pinnacle of his achievement. Handel opera scholar Winton Dean observes “Rodelinda was the third major masterpiece produced by Handel in less than twelve months, an achievement without parallel in the history of opera.” After a 1736 production it was unseen until 1920, when it led the revival of Handel operas in the 20th century.

4 weeks ago | bachtrack.com | Roy Westbrook

The orchestral prelude is playing. Herman is wandering St Petersburg alone. A set of giant tarnished mirrors parts to reveal a hectic gambling scene, then a young woman, Lisa. They become Herman’s twin obsessions; the former will destroy the latter, and then Herman himself. No one has sung a note, but a tragedy has been foretold. It is typical of Garsington’s intelligent and insightful new production of Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades.

1 month ago | bachtrack.com | Roy Westbrook

The English Music Festival always occupies the splendid spaces of Dorchester Abbey in the second May Bank Holiday weekend, and this was the 18th edition. JB McEwen’s Nugae; Seven Bagatelles for String Quartetmade an intriguing curtain-raiser, coming from this distinguished Scottish music academic and administrator. He seems to have held his own compositions in less regard than those of his colleagues, but these short pieces have an appeal of their own.

1 month ago | bachtrack.com | Roy Westbrook

The Till of Till Eulenspeigel (1895) was a legendary prankster in the Middle Ages with an inclination to mockery, including of religion. That eventually saw him hanged, but not before an eventful career had run its riotous course, as depicted in Richard Strauss’s dazzling and colourful score. The London Symphony Orchestra relished the demands the composer presents to every section – this is a concerto for orchestra in all but name, such are the opportunities for display.