Alban Berg's black, satirical opera is one of the masterpieces of the 20th Century. It charts the rise and fall of a femme fatale "created to make trouble", from life as a society hostess to prostitution and eventual bloody death at the hands of Jack the Ripper. Berg's score is intensely beautiful,...
Captain Vere, an old man, is haunted by a moment in his life when he was tested and found wanting. Based on Herman Melville's novella of naval life in the late 18th Century, Benjamin Britten's 'Billy Budd' is a gripping reflection on good and evil, innocence and corruption.
Glyndebourne's celebrated production of Nikolaus Lehnhoff's Tristan und Isolde is a supremely intelligent achievement; gravely beautiful, haunting and meditative, it is deeply reflective rather than visceral, fortified by Roland Aeschlimann's stunningly effective set, a womb-like space through...