Cecilia Bartoli

Sheer determination, positive thinking and a passion for singing have enabled Nadine Benjamin to make the transition from the world of high finance to a rapidly developing career as an opera singer. She talks to Claire Jackson about her forthcoming tour with ETO and her plans to conquer the opera world, whatever it takes

Cecilia Bartoli has been in the spotlight for more than 30 years, developing a reputation for being one of opera’s most theatrical, engaging and self-motivated personalities. Her hallmark as an artist has been to take risks and surprise her audiences with unusual and daring programming, as in her recent collaboration with Argentinian cellist, Sol Gabetta. George Hall sensed the musical chemistry in the air when Cecilia met Sol…

A weekend in Sarasota

Yukiko Kishinami introduces the work of the New National Theatre Tokyo, which is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary as Japan’s foremost promoter and producer of Western opera.

Prague is re-asserting its position at the very heart of European culture, promoting its rich operatic legacy to the world at large, with the help of a rather special visitor… Claire Jackson experienced the Czech capital in the grip of Domingo fever

Everyone knows about the operatic riches of Berlin, Vienna, Paris and New York. If you’re feeling adventurous, however, there are some unforgettable operatic experiences to be had in unusual destinations from the Caucasus mountains and the shores of the Caspian Sea to islands in the Baltic and the Mediterranean. Opera Now’s most intrepid correspondents take you off the beaten track

Nico Muhly is a fluent composer whose musical language is well adjusted to setting texts – which in theory should make him a good composer of opera. However, although Marnie is an advance in musical terms on Muhly’s rather tedious Two Boys (premiered by ENO in 2011), it doesn’t hang together as a convincing character-led drama on the operatic stage

It can be tough for the grumpy critic to set aside old reflexes. In NIO’s new production of Così, Mozart’s overture opened to the sight of prancing couples, and things proceeded with the characters jiggling along to the music: ‘Ah, here we go again,’ I sighed

It took just 90 minutes for Alban Berg to document the wasteland inhabited by Wozzeck, the simple soldier driven to murder and suicide by those around him. A new production by Robert Carsen at the Theater and der Wien makes the most of every second

This was a self-consciously bizarre, deadening interpretation of the 16-year-old Mozart’s richly challenging piece of juvenilia, staged by the German director Tobias Kratzer, winner of the triennial Ring Award 2008, who is slated to direct Tannhäuser at Bayreuth in 2019