Barbican, London - London | 21 January 2021 |

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Performance reviews
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Der FreischützBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 5 | ![]() |
Laurence Equilbey leads a marvellous performance of Der Freischütz |
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The evening reaffirmed the stature of Weber’s opera. |
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Semi-staging short on drama but delivers star singers |
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A performance that ultimately felt as lovingly rendered as it was thoughtfully produced |
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Gothic chills rooted in flesh and earth |
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Miss JulieBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 4 | ![]() |
The singing was of the highest quality |
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The music proves extremely evocative |
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Alwyn's Miss Julie rescued from the operatic desert |
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Sakari Oramo's revival brims with colour and verve |
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Le nozze di FigaroBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 1 | ![]() |
Richard Egarr leads a very involving concert performance of Le nozze di Figaro |
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AgrippinaBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 6 | ![]() |
DiDonato reigned supreme |
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Gripping Agrippina from Joyce DiDonato and Il Pomo d’Oro |
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DiDonato and Il pomo d'oro make Handel's Agrippina sparkle at the Barbican |
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Over-the-top comic brilliance |
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Il “Circo itinerante” di Joyce Di Donato, nel suo tour europeo, ha piantato le tende a Londra |
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Crisp, vibrant proof that Handel still has comic bounce |
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CandideBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 5 | ![]() |
This performance was ultimately as classy as it was fun |
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The playing produced that unmistakable sheen of glamour and style, bags of both |
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Missing too many bullseyes: Bernstein's Candide semi-staged by the LSO |
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Candide forms a fitting climax to the LSO’s celebration of the Bernstein centenary |
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The best of all possible productions |
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Dido and AeneasBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 5 | ![]() |
Stark and grief-stricken |
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Caitlin Hulcup’s smooth, plush mezzo communicated the queen’s struggles, conflicts and uncertainties |
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A Funeral for the Queen of Carthage is a remarkable evening of Purcell |
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A freewheeling, fresh take on Purcell |
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Guthrie’s production successfully evoked the broader and human ethos of Purcell’s drama |
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Dead Man WalkingBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 10 | ![]() |
La ópera de la redención |
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Strong performances from all the cast |
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A stellar cast made a work of art greater than the sum of its parts |
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Crime, punishment, forgiveness, redemption: Dead Man Walking finally reaches London |
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The full house at the Barbican Hall collectively held its breath as the process of Joe’s eventual redemption worked itself out |
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UK première of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking at the Barbican |
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Grabbed us by the throat and never let go |
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Death-row drama with more breast-beating than psychological insight |
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Extraordinarily powerful |
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Dead Man Walking receives its UK premiere |
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La Damnation de FaustBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 7 | ![]() |
El maestro y Margarita |
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Simon Rattle’s on a roll |
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Rattle pulled out all the stops for a concert performance of Berlioz’s opera The Damnation Of Faust |
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Blazing Berlioz at the Barbican Hall |
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Rattle leads the LSO on a thrilling ride into the abyss |
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Sunday evening’s performance was a tour de force |
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Simon Rattle pulled off a remarkably vigorous account of The Damnation of Faust |
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AriodanteBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 8 | ![]() |
Contains some of Handel's most extraordinary depictions of derangement |
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Alice Coote e chiaramente una cantante handeliana di esperienza |
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Even after a long evening this superb account of Ariodante leaves one wanting more |
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Alice Coote delivered a brilliantly engaging and emotional rendition of ‘Scherza infida’ |
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A marvellous Ariodante at the Barbican Hall |
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By far the most interesting portrayal came from Sonia Prina as the villain, Polinesso |
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Alice Coote plunged uninhibitedly into the title role of Handel’s opera |
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This concert performance offered Handel as an Almodóvar ensemble piece, comic and tragic in equal measure and gloriously uninhibited |
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Le grand macabreBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 15 | ![]() |
The London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre is on a high |
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Apocalypse now? |
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Anthony Roth Costanzo stood out as Prince Go-Go |
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A memorable evening, though not one I’d want to repeat |
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Joyeux bordel |
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La fin du monde n’aura pas lieu |
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Le Grand Macabre is certainly Ligeti's most sustained and demanding piece |
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Madcap brilliance |
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Sellars brings muddle but Rattle, beauty |
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Sellars couldn’t find the work’s throbbing political pulse |
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Skill and precision |
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Le Grand Macabre at the Barbican: surreal, madcap, touching the sublime |
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Simon Rattle leads an outstanding concert performance of Le grand macabre |
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Demi-staging of Ligeti's apocalypse-maybe hits hard but misses the wit and brio |
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The breathtaking quality of the LSO’s playing only reconfirmed the opera and its composer as giants of modern music |
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associated articles [+]
The perfect show for the Donald Trump era
Le Grand Macabre opera is the perfect show for the Donald Trump era, says its director, Peter Sellars.
Le Grand Macabre opera is the perfect show for the Donald Trump era, says its director, Peter Sellars.
The Fairy QueenBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 10 | ![]() |
Purcell’s ravishing music battled it out with brooms |
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The general effect is messy but musically of a high order |
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The cast seemed to enjoy themselves |
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The music making was of an especially high standard |
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Musically a triumph but the production tried too hard |
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Staging Purcell's Fairy Queen: an ingenious solution at the Barbican |
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Iestyn Davies is an absolute treat in this radical Fairy Queen |
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Brave attempt to tame Purcell's tricky drama |
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The evening was a delightful succession of phantasmagoric tableaux |
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A coherent if unorthodox production |
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Adelson e SalviniBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 9 | ![]() |
Was Opera Rara justified in reviving Bellini’s first opera? Oh yes |
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Daniela Barcellona was excellent as Nelly |
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Bellini wrote this, his first opera, in 1824 while a student at the Naples Conservatory |
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Opera Rara unearths a naive Bellini gem at the Barbican |
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Adelson e Salvini certainly does not lack dramatic incident |
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Opera Rara had assembled a fine cast for the lesser-known work |
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A curious and uneven Bellini rarity, beautifully performed |
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A dispiriting evening |
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Where Bellini started: Opera Rara's Adelson e Salvini |
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Written on SkinBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 5 | ![]() |
If I could, I would award this opera 7 stars |
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This is confident writing in skin from a composer entirely bien dans sa peau |
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What a wonderful opera Written on Skin is |
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An erotic yet brutal meditation on art |
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Signed off with an orchestral flourish |
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Pelléas et MélisandeBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 13 | ![]() |
Pélleas y Simon entre Berlin y Londres |
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A most compelling evening |
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Symphonie avec voix |
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Powerful and upsetting |
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When, o when, will someone put Peter Sellars and his compendium of clichés out of our misery? |
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Less is more |
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Rattle draws shimmering beauty from the forest |
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Rattle delivered a focused and precise, yet notably sumptuous, account of Debussy’s enigmatic score |
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Rattle's moving statement of intent |
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Irresistible |
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Underpinning the evening was the LSO’s endlessly allusive, subtle playing |
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Rattle has certainly rethought the opera since he last conducted it at the ROH in 2007 |
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Rattle and Sellars revisit Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande |
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TamerlanoBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 5 | ![]() |
A huge slice of Handel: Tamerlano from Il Pomo d'Oro at the Barbican |
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As Tamerlano, Mr Sabata rolled his Italian ‘r’s with a vengeance |
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Well sung and played but lacking in drama |
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A hit and miss evening |
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There was not a palpable sense of commitment to Tamerlano as a musical-dramatic work |
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Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patriaBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 5 | ![]() |
The closing image of a circle of gentle light - Penelope within, Ulisse without - was compelling |
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Elizabeth Watts threw everything into her brilliant portrayal of Minerva |
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Ian Bostridge brings richness amid reflection |
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Ian Bostridge is compelling as Ulisse in Monteverdi’s opera |
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A successful conclusion to this Monteverdi series |
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Duke Bluebeard's CastleBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 3 | ![]() |
Karabits’ pacing of the hour-long work was masterly |
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Bluebeard’s Castle was given a fine performance |
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A viscerally exciting Bluebeard’s Castle |
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Alice in WonderlandBarbican, LondonNo. of reviews: 11 | ![]() |
Unsuk Chin’s Alice is lost in music |
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Too much miaowing |
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Baldur Brönniman’s unflappable, eagle-eyed conducting was boundless |
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You have to be in the right mood to enjoy this piece |
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Unsuk Chin’s score is dazzling |
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An opera 'Alice' in London, worthy of the book's 150th |
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The Korean composer's trippy adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic is a loud and garish nightmare |
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Netia Jones’s ingenious staging can’t disguise dramatic flaws |
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Zany, anarchic and subversive, and also hilariously funny |
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Barbican's 2008-09 programme announced |
Handel and Purcell operas, Keenlyside and Kirchschlager, Quasthoff and Chailly flank new season. |
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