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Fidelio, Royal Opera House
Incoherence mars ambitious interpretation of Beethoven’s only opera
EXTRAORDINARY: Lise Davidsen as Fidelio
[Bill Cooper]
Given the power of the live experience, MIK SABIERS recommends Jon Spencer’s new album
Reviews of T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo, Tamikrest, and Dub Colossus
The bard celebrates two other fine practitioners of the art, and laments a lost brewer
This right-wing conspiracy theory is used to justify the coercive measures against gender, race and labour rights that best serve capitalism, attests GAVIN O’TOOLE
KENNY MONROSE recommends a new exhibition that highlights the significance of Black British music
THIS Royal Opera House production, marking Beethoven’s 250th birthday and with award-winning director Tobias Kratzer making his ROH debut, has been eagerly anticipated.
Kratzer believes that 18th and 19th-century composers would habitually locate their operas in exotic places in order to comment on contemporary events and, in setting this Fidelio in post-revolutionary France, he returns “what the censorship had abolished.”
An appropriate move, given that current events in France seem largely unreported outside that country.
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