I got back on Sunday evening from four beautiful days in Provence - with the Ristretto Summer Academy, as a spectator only I should add! And here they all are above, after the Saturday night concert, the result of seven days hard work with Errol Girdlestone (front and centre!).   Any enthusiastic experienced amateur chorister would have a terrific time in the enchanting Lumierès.  People go back there year after year and enjoy the work, the sun, the pool, and the food.  But above all the company of like minded people. The church and the rehearsal rooms are all attached to the hotel, and the ..read more

I am sitting in the shade where the temperature is 34 - in the delightful Hotel Notre-Dame de Lumières. I am here for just four days to join Errol and Susie Girdlestone at the Ristretto Summer Academy. This place is a paradise with the hotel attached to the chapel and as I sit here the sound of the chorus rehearsing for the concert tomorrow evening has a unique magic. This is a good way to get away from some apparently ghastly weather in England this week.  The chorus come from all over the world, even from northern Alberta in one case!  But certainly the majority are enthusiastic amateur cho ..read more

Paco Peña and company at Cubitt Sesions, Kings Cross Saturday July 27 2019 The last eight days have been mainly social catching up with friends after such busy weeks all over the place! But it was a huge pleasure to go to the 2019 Cubitt sessions at the excellent new space that they are using at King's Cross - the Coal Drops Yard.  Paco Peña is of course a living legend - to have him and his troupe for two hours in King's Cross on a summer evening, and all for free, is a miracle! © Ali Wright Natalya Romaniw and David Butt Philip in Iolanta On Thursday evening I was able to get to one of the o ..read more

Nelson Mandela and the Union Buildings, Pretoria July 19 2019 My trip to Cape Town was a huge success with no less than 4 singers being selected for the final rounds in Germany in October. We were already short of men so I was particularly pleased to choose two baritones and a tenor, as well as a very thrilling soprano. All we have left now is for my colleague Evamaria Wieser to go to Asia to find the last few to make up the total of 44 finalists.  Cape Town University opera school is in very good shape with their new director Jeremy Silver following hugely successfully in the footsteps of Kam ..read more

The Table Mountain 6:15 pm Tuesday July 16 from downtown Cape Town I am now in South Africa for what I fully expect to be a fruitful series of auditions.  In recent years we have found some outstanding talent here, as have other prospectors for vocal gold. I already had a most encouraging evening on Tuesday at Artscape and today, Thursday, I am set for further riches in Baxter Hall at the University of Cape Town. It is winter still here and the advantage of that is that there are few tourists.  And so a visit yesterday to the Groot Constantia vineyard and winery was a peaceful pleasure, as was ..read more

© ROH/Clive Barda Amanda Majeski as Kát'a Kabanová at the Royal Opera House February 2019 Janáček's Kát'a Kabanová has been a very special piece for me over the years, with productions in Wexford in 1972, in Glyndebourne in 1988, and in Toronto in 1994.  I would dearly loved to have brought it to Chicago Opera Theater while I was there since it would have been perfect in the Harris Theater.  But that would always have been a difficult one with Chicago Lyric having the leasehold on Janáček!  But had we done so, then it is very possible that the Royal Opera's Kat'a Amanda Majeski would have sun ..read more

A week of Fantasio - two performances, two casts. And what a pleasure it was to be at Garsington twice this week.  I had been at a piano run of Fantasio last month, then the first stage and orchestra rehearsal. And I was at the understudy show case last week.  But I had not seen the complete show until Monday. And last night I returned for the wonderful OperaFirst event - a full performance with all the trimmings with the understudy cast to a house full of unbelievably attentive and enthusiastic school age children from 8 to 18.  Most heart warming.  Above you see the understudy cast acknowle ..read more

Garsington Understudy Showcase line up! I had slightly shortened week as a result of a stupid minor accident that landed me in hospital for two nights! I am just fine now so do not worry.  But it ,meant that I missed the opening of Garsington's Turn of the Screw on Monday evening but returned to duty on Tuesday for a most enjoyable showcase of the season's understudies at the RADA studios on Tuesday. The Garsington Alvarez Young Artists' Programme gives many of its members the opportunity to understudy main stage roles. And inevitably each season one or more of them my have the experience of ..read more

© Clive Barda Bryn Terfel (Boris) and Matthew Rose (Pimen) at Covent Garden After a really enjoyable week at the Aldeburgh Festival I returned to London for more epic treats! I do not think that you can do much better these days with Bryn Terfel, John Tomlinson and Matthew Rose in Boris Godunov. The cast at Covent Garden du jour in the 1970s was Boris Christoff, Joseph Rouleau and Michael Langdon - not shabby at all!  And I was fortunate enough to have seen them in full cry. But this was something very special too, and despatched for good and all the notion that "the good old days" were better ..read more

Orford Castle Five days in East Anglia with the Aldeburgh Festival and so many other delights is an annual pleasure these days.  I had always struggled to get here during my years in Canada and the US but now there is no excuse!  So I will make up for lost time.  The Festival is in the immensely creative hands of Roger Wright and his exceptional team.  And they can do things that only a festival can contemplate. A perfect example of exactly that was the fascinating recreation of Schubert's legendary program of March 26 1828, the year of his death. With Mark Padmore, Roderick Williams, and a de ..read more