by Paul E. Robinson

While opera fans are notoriously old-fashioned when it comes to stage directors bringing overarching new ideas to their favourite works, it is clear that if opera is going to have any future, it must be open to creative re-thinking.
Wieland Wagner successfully updated his grandfather’s “Ring” cycle at Bayreuth in the 1950s, and [...]

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by Paul E. Robinson

It’s not possible to be in two places at once, or is it? Thanks to “The Met Live in HD,” I virtually spent the afternoon in New York enjoying “Le Comte Ory,” and the evening at the Long Center in Austin, Texas, totally engrossed in Jonathan Dove’s “Flight” as presented by the [...]

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by Paul E. Robinson

I must confess that I was reaching the point where I doubted I could sit through another performance of “Carmen!” The plot was too silly, the music overly familiar and the characters merely cardboard cutouts; then, along came the Royal Opera House production directed for the stage by Francesca Zambello, and for [...]

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