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Die Walküre at Royal Opera: Valkyries Ride through ecological catastrophe
Brünnhilde herself is sung by Elisabet Strid, who more than makes up for a less than stentorian voice with the warmth and credibility of her girlish Valkyrie. Of a piece with this casting is the Wotan of Christopher Maltman. While his voice may lack the expansiveness that, say, John Tomlinson brought to the previous Covent Garden production, by Keith Warner, he brings all the subtlety and nuance to his delivery that he crafted as a lieder singer earlier in his career.
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The Guardian
25-05-2025
- The Guardian
Faust review – darkly gothic production turns Gounod's opera into boisterous Les Mis
Gounod's Faust is one of those operas – readers may wish to nominate their own candidates – that one does not wish to see too often. Yes, Faust has celebrated musical moments which are a pleasure to hear sung well. Yes, Gounod's score eventually becomes more interestingly chromatic as the denouement nears. And yes, David McVicar's darkly gothic production, now with 21 years' service on the clock, successfully removes it from Goethe's intellectual shadow, turning Faust into a theatrically boisterous Parisian show reminiscent at times of Les Mis or Moulin Rouge. McVicar's production is revived, amid Charles Edwards's towering Second Empire sets, by Peter Relton. You immediately grasp why this 1860s French setting is still one of Covent Garden's most bankable productions. Yet, for all its mix of panache and musical charms, well marshaled under Maurizio Benini's experienced direction in the pit, Faust struggles to hold the attention, not least because of the final act ballet that Gounod added a decade after the 1859 premiere. In the end, Faust still depends on singers who can make Gounod's beguiling music convincing. Over the years, Covent Garden has relied on a steady stream of notables in the roles on which the work's reputation rests – the restless Faust, the devil Méphistophélès to whom he sells his soul, and the innocent Marguerite whom Faust seduces. There have been exceptional singers of the roles of Valentin and Siébel too. This production, for instance, launched in 2004 with Roberto Alagna, Bryn Terfel and Angela Gheorghiu. The current cast cannot match that vocal star power. That's particularly obvious in the case of Stefan Pop in the title role, whose singing rarely ascends above the level of reliably solid. Making Faust either believable or sympathetic is tough, and while Pop undoubtedly has the stamina for a demanding role, the voice offers little in the way of elegant tenorial phrasing and grace, while his diction is muddy and his acting minimal. As so often, it is Méphistophélès who commands the attention whenever he is involved, and Adam Palka, deputising impressively for the originally announced Erwin Schrott, has both voice and stage presence to do so most of the time. Boris Pinkhasovich's big baritone gives a reliable rendering of Valentin's famous aria in act two, though nuanced it is not. Hongni Wu is an attractively bright voiced Siébel. But it is left to Carolina López Moreno's Marguerite, the opera's most interesting role, to bring real vocal distinction to the evening. After a suitably demure start, López Moreno brought contrasts of mood and tone to Marguerite's ballad, followed by a pinpoint bright Jewel Song before impressively dominating the tragic (though simultaneously banal) final trio. At the Royal Opera House, London, until 10 June.
Spectator
21-05-2025
- Spectator
Christopher Wheeldon's real gifts lie in abstract dance
Christopher Wheeldon must be one of the most steadily productive and widely popular figures in today's dance world, but I'm yet to be persuaded that he has much gift for narrative. His adaptation of the novel Like Water for Chocolate was a hopeless muddle; his response to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is mere vaudeville; and I'm praying to St Jude that nobody is planning to import his dramatisation of Oscar Wilde's downfall, premièred in Australia last year. But as the elegant craftsman, and sometimes the inspired artist, of more abstract dance, he is without doubt a great talent. The Royal Ballet's programme of four of his shorter pieces showcases his strengths. Let's get the misfire out of the way first – The Two of Us is set to four Joni Mitchell standards, prissily sung live on stage by Julia Fordham (to do her justice, she was struggling against a faulty sound system). Lauren Cuthbertson and Calvin Richardson are wasted as they mooch around in shimmering pyjamas without ever establishing any compelling counterpoint to the implications of the lyrics or the mood of the music: they might as well be extemporising, and there's just not enough interest in the movement they come up with to hold one's interest. But everything else on offer gives much pleasure. Fool's Paradise, first seen at Covent Garden in 2012, is richly melancholy – perhaps subliminally a meditation on how relationships between three people inexorably gravitate into two, but more obviously a beautiful example of Wheeldon's neoclassicism. His aesthetic has been influenced by his long sojourn in America and his choreographic style reflects that of New York City Ballet luminaries such as Jerome Robbins and Justin Peck as much as it does that of his Royal Ballet precursors Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan: sleekly athletic, clean in line, devoid of jerks and twerks, milk and honey for dancers with fluent classical technique.
Daily Mail
14-05-2025
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE ELLA TOONE: Why I go to counselling - and how I'm giving back
Ella Toone looks slightly different to how fans usually see her when she sits down to speak with Mail Sport. Hair in pin curls, a full face of makeup on and dressed in a burgundy suit, I meet her in a hotel room at fancy Covent Garden hotel the Nomad, where she's shooting content for global makeup brand Charlotte Tilbury.
