Reviews & features: Opera

Music highlights from the 2011 Edinburgh International Festival

Melvyn Tan and Bamberg Symphony Orchestra among picks

Melvyn Tan. The Queen's Hall morning concerts can usually be relied on for a few Festival surprises. Hearing perfectly formed piano music by 18th century Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti alongside Sonatas and Interludes by 20th century American John…

Programme for the Edinburgh International Festival 2013 puts artists and technology centre-stage

Tod Machover, the Wooster Group and Oper Frankfurt among the EIF programme highlights

A crowd sourced orchestral work by boundary breaker Tod Machover is just one of the many highlights of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival programme. Set over three weeks this August, the EIF’s line-up includes an homage to Allen Ginsberg with…

Porgy and Bess takes centre stage at Edinburgh International Festival

Opéra de Lyon's production of Gershwins' crossover classic

As operas go, it’s fair to say that Porgy and Bess blew in like a hurricane. When George and Ira Gershwin’s self-styled ‘American folk opera’ featuring a libretto by DuBose and Dorothy Heyward appeared on the New York stage in 1935, its cast of…

Silviu Purcărete’s 'Faust'

The veteran Romanian director tackles Goethe

Silviu Purcărete doesn’t do things by halves. Last time the veteran Romanian director was in Edinburgh was almost two decades ago with a version of Ubu Rex. The production was a massive take on Alfred Jarry’s absurdist classic. Since then he brought a…

Zoe Strachan on The Lady from the Sea - interview

The playwright is collaborating with Craig Armstrong on the production for Scottish Opera

Five years ago, Scottish Opera embarked on a brave new venture called Five:15. The plan was to put together contemporary Scottish writers and composers and commission them to come up with five new 15 minute long operas. Altogether, 15 short operas were…

Twenty top shows at the 2012 Edinburgh Festivals

Highlights from the Fringe, Book and International Festivals

Having scanned the 23.6m shows, exhibitions and events across the festival in late July, August and early September, we pluck out the ones that simply cannot be missed

Qing Cheng

Epic, millenium-spanning Chinese love story part of the China Fringe Festival

A night at the opera takes on a whole new meaning with Qing Cheng, an elaborate yet moving Chinese musical making its European debut at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall as part of the China Fringe Festival. Top billing in a week of cutting-edge entertainment from…

Sarah Connolly

Mezzo soprano returns to jazz roots

Among other things, 2010 is likely to be memorable as the year of the mezzo-soprano at the Edinburgh International Festival. Joyce DiDonato, Petra Lang and Christine Brewer, who replaces the indisposed Susan Graham, are just three of the famous names…

An overview of the 2010 Edinburgh Festivals and their directors

What to expect from Edinburgh in August

Nowhere does a festival quite like Edinburgh, and even with the film folk having long moved out of August, there is more than plenty going on for lovers of art, literature, comedy, theatre, kids entertainment, music, dance and military displays. The…

Edinburgh, My Home: Jonathan Mills

Edinburgh International Festival director Jonathan Mills on the virtues and indiscretions of his adopted home

Regal king size - Król Roger

Edinburgh International Festival

Fitting neatly into the EIF’s theme of Artists Without Borders, the majestic Król Roger opens up audiences to an innovative collaboration. Carol Main chats to Festival director Jonathan Mills about the opera’s arrival in the city. Listening to a…

Opera North bring The Makropulos Case to 2012 Edinburgh International Festival

Janáček opera features soprano Ylva Kihlberg and Tom Cairns

As Opera North prepare to bring us a new version of The Makropulos Case, Kate Molleson recalls the history of a tale whose central character is either a nihilistic vixen or feminist icon

Turandot

A radical completion of Puccini's unfinished opera

The familiar tune of Nessun Dorma, from Puccini’s unfinished opera Turandot, is played at volume on a Hammond organ, as two men (one representing a hybrid of Puccini and his fictional prince, Kalaf, the other, an androgynous figure, who is, at times…

Ten Plagues

Intense, moving Marc Almond-starring plague musical strikes a chord

A one-man musical based on eyewitness accounts of the London Plague of 1665 starring Marc Almond sounds on paper like the kind of parody you’d find on the website fakefringe.com. Indeed, the 80s pop icon seems nervous as he takes to the stage in black…

Opera Die Frau Ohne Schatten set for 2011 Edinburgh International Festival

Russia's Mariinsky Theatre and Jonathan Kent bring Strauss opera to EIF

To say Jonathan Kent's EIF opus is 'a bit' epic is like saying Edinburgh gets 'a bit' busy in August. This summer the Brit director joins forces with Russia's Mariinsky to stage the little-seen Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow). A cast…

Theatre, music and dance highlights from the 2011 Edinburgh International Festival

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Semiramide and King Lear among picks

The Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) has been a benchmark for quality and innovation in the performing arts since its inauguration nearly 65 years ago. This year artistic director Jonathan Mills builds his programme around the multi-faceted…

Edinburgh International Festival 2011 IN festival membership scheme

EIF and The List deal for half-price tickets, events and freebies

Edinburgh International Festival - in association with The List magazine - are offering members of an innovative and exclusive membership scheme a whole host of half-price tickets, event passes and freebies for the 2011 Festival season. Membership to…

Opera Bohemia

Talented new company's Fringe debut

As the name may suggest, Opera Bohemia’s title was inspired by the aspiring artist characters in Puccini’s La Bohéme. Founded by two former RSAMD students, Alistair Digges and Douglas Nairne, this new opera company is a wealth of extraordinary fresh…

Tribute concert to Sir Charles Mackerras at EIF

Fantastic celebration of a wonderful man

One of the leading lights on the EIF, Sir Charles Mackerras has long been synonymous with the talent and the creativity at the heart of the Edinburgh International Festival. Fitting then, that they should celebrate his passing earlier this year with a…

Club Noir and Scottish Opera collaborate on A Night At The Opera

Burlesque night prepare for unlikely pairing

Henry Northmore talks to the burlesque night as they prepare for one of this festival’s most unlikely collaborations

American mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato returns to Edinburgh Festival

DiDonato performs Idomeneo and with David Zobel at EIF 2010

Last summer, mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato soldiered on with a broken leg in London and was plunged into darkness at the Usher Hall. Carol Main keeps everything crossed for the Kansas girl’s Edinburgh return

Further Edinburgh International Festival highlights 2010

Montezuma Carl Heinrich Graun’s opera about the Aztec leader who welcomed Spanish adventurers into his kingdom only for them to quickly get tore into the plundering and subjugation explores the clash of two very different worldviews. King’s Theatre…

John Adams and Lee Breuer among Edinburgh International Festival 2010 highlights

As the programme is launched for this year’s Edinburgh International Festival, we cast an eye over the highlights

Admeto, re di Tessaglia

Exit, pursued by a butoh sheep

Opera is a medium well placed to embrace the ridiculous, and sometimes to render it sublime. Strained voices, high drama, grand sets, expensive costumes and expensive tickets: they all have their place, and it can be a fine line between spectacular and…

Actus tragicus

Bach in a dolls house

'I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual.' Virginia Woolf's sentiment is one the characters in Actus tragicus might well understand - though her black humour would probably be lost on them. Filling the stage is an impressive…