Trio of great performances help four hours of passion and politics fly by.

The 66-year-old Italian bass talks to Limelight about Kings, Christoff, Karajan and the secret of vocal longevity. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The mighty Canadian tenor who redefined Peter Grimes passes at 88.

Limelight’s Editor meets the American Turandot all set to be the next Aussie Brünnhilde. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Finally, one of Britain’s finest ensembles tackles the final masterpiece of one of Britain’s finest composers. The results are, as you’d expect, spectacular. Henry Purcell left the semi-opera The Indian Queen unfinished at his death in 1695 and it fell to his brother Daniel to supply a happy ending of sorts in the form of The Masque of Hymen for the 1696 revival. Consequently, audiences would have heard less music at the work’s Theatre Royal premiere in 1695 than they would have in any of Purcell’s previous semi-operas such as The Fairy Queen, from which the present work borrows a dance (more recycling sees the inclusion of the overture from the ode Come Ye Sons of Art). But what the music might lack in quantity, it more than makes up for in quality. Purcell devoted every ounce of his skill and artistry to bring to life John Dryden and Sir Robert Howard’s convoluted play about the Mexican Queen Zempoalla’s war with the Montezuma-led Peruvians, and the airs, dances, duets, trios and choruses perfectly manifest those “Italian and French styles English’d” so typical of this English Orpheus. The recording opens with an amusing pre-show entertainment, Purcell’s satirical three-voice catch To all…

★★★★☆ Interested in the contenders for the bulkiest opera of all time? Look no further than Havergal Brian’s The Tigers. Yes, if you thought his Gothic Symphony was impractical you ain’t seen nothing yet! Composed between 1917 and 1919, and scored for massive orchestra (including five tubas, harmonica, three timpani players, thunder machine, ship’s siren, two vibraphones, tubaphone(!) and organ), the work has never been staged. The full score was lost until the Brian Society put out a reward for its recovery, and the plucky BBC made a radio recording back in 1983. That performance, thanks to Testament, is now available on three discs. The opera concerns the (at times mystifying) bumbling antics of a regiment known as The Tigers on manoeuvres in the Home Counties. But Brian isn’t just offering a semi-Straussian comic opera. There are dream ballets for gargoyles come to life, a commedia dell’arte fantasy and the massive opening scene on Hampstead Heath (which calls for an elephant!) culminates in a huge set of orchestral variations on Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly. Ambitious! The fine cast comprises many of the top British singers of the day (including the likes of Teresa Cahill, Marilyn Hill-Smith, Alan Opie and…

It’s unfortunate that at 51, French tenor Roberto Alagna is probably best remembered for walking off after being booed by the La Scala claque, all captured on YouTube. And then there were tempestuous years with second wife Angela Gheorghiu, which prompted the nickname “the Ceausescus” and for Jonathan Miller to dub them the Bonnie and Clyde of opera. But there have been triumphs as well. From his earliest days, listening to his Sicilian dad singing Italian songs on building sites around Paris, and cathartic moments when he saw Mario Lanza in The Great Caruso and later met Luciano Pavarotti at a record signing, eventually auditioning for him, Alagna’s life has resembled the synopsis of an operatic potboiler. Hence the title of his latest album, My Life Is An Opera, which comes with the most excruciating liner notes I have read for a while and on which he forsakes his earlier crossover hits for some mainly bel canto and verismo arias. In among them he includes a couple of surprises – Ernest Reyer’s Esprits, gardiens des ces lieux vénérés and Karl Goldmark’s Magische Töne, for example, as well as a short excerpt from his brother’s opera The Last Day of a…

★★★★☆ This splendid DVD of Norwegian director Stefan Herheim’s 2013 Salzburg Festival production of Die Meistersinger draws a strong visual analogy between Wagner’s comic opera and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It works well, aided by a superlative cast, some knockout staging and the full Vienna Philharmonic and Staatsopernchor under conductor Daniele Gatti. The sets comprise oversized Biedermeier furniture and fittings, emphasising the fairytale feeling. Roberto Sacca as Eurovision song candidate Walther works well with Anna Gabler convincing as his eventual bride. The show, of course, belongs to Hans Sachs, and in Michael Volle we have a particularly fine one, slapstick when playing off Markus Werba’s pedantic, conniving Beckmesser, but also with a very human touch. There are some clever theatrical moments, but look out for the Apprentices’ Dance when hand puppets make way for the full-size thing. Busts of Beethoven, Goethe and Schopenhauer – representing German art to be protected from foreign influences – act as silent witnesses until the exquisite quintet when Sachs unveils the noticeably larger bust of Wagner himself. There is some obligatory on-stage carnality in the crowd scenes but nothing too hard-core. Gatti (shortly to take up his new position as chief conductor of the Concertgebouw),…

Johann Adolph Hasse’s Siroe (Dresden, 1763) was a setting of Metastasio’s hit libretto about an otherwise utterly unmemorable King of Persia. Kavadh II was king of the Sasanian Empire for all of one year in 628 after revolting and overthrowing his father. Vinci, Vivaldi and Handel all had a stab at it, and Hasse’s original version starred Farinelli and Caffarelli, but what we have here is his later reworking of the opera. It’s one of those ‘make-you-want-to-shout-at-them’ plots. It seems everybody except his son Siroe is plotting against tyrannical King Cosroe, but who is it that the silly old sod suspects? Yes, you’ve guessed it – Siroe. And, of course, the latter is the only person so honourable that he prefers to stay schtum rather than betray the others. Hasse reveals himself a master of baroque form, perhaps lacking Handel’s memorability, but his equal in structural sonics and dramatic ambition. Occasionally he makes a musical wrong call – an over-passive aria might follow a recitative that should imply a number with a bit more musical spunk – and the modern restorers have had recourse to a couple of inserts from other works in the final act to help things along….

With a toned down rape, it’s a wonder what all the fuss was about.

Pasticcio it may be but Vivaldi's Bajazet is more than the sum of its parts.

Demi-monde brought fully to life in beautifully cast and conducted revival.