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Richard Bratby
Classical music reviewer for the Birmingham Post
Review: I Puritani, Welsh National Opera at Birmingham Hippodrome
Birmingham Hippodrome
Annilese Miskimmon relocates Bellini’s I Puritani amidst the khaki paint and plastic bucket-chairs of a 1970s Ulster church hall, rendered with depressing accuracy by designer Leslie Travers.
Review: Birmingham Contemporary Music Group/Knussen at CBSO Centre
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
With BCMG, there's never any concert so carefully planned, so meticulously and imaginatively put together, that it doesn’t allow room for spontaneity.
Review: Orchestra of the Swan, Tamsin Waley-Cohen, at the Town Hall
Orchestra Of The Swan
When Tamsin Waley-Cohen came on to play Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, David Curtis and the Orchestra of the Swan were at the top of their game.
Review: Royal Danish Orchestra at the Symphony Hall
Birmingham Symphony Hall
Every note of this concert under its music director Michael Boder displayed an orchestra that’s up for a challenge, and which tackles those challenges with energy, character and an irresistible sense of theatre.
Review: Presteigne Festival Orchestra at St Andrew's Church, Presteigne
Retail & Consumer
If this tribute concert to the late John McCabe looked like it might have been programmed by McCabe himself, that's because - as George Vass explained to a capacity audience on the last night of the 2015 Presteigne Festival - it was.
Review: Xerxes at Longborough Festival Opera
Retail & Consumer
Longborough's new production of Handel’s Xerxes: a feast of virtuoso singing and lively characterisation, visually stunning and sparkling with wit, pathos and dramatic energy.
Review: BBC Proms, CBSO at the Royal Albert Hall
CBSO
A great artistic partnership, cut heartbreakingly short.
Review: Don Pasquale at Longborough Festival Opera
Retail & Consumer
You don’t have to be a Zeffirelli-fixated Luddite to feel that opera directors’ habit of updating everything they touch has become a reflex action.
Review: Midsummer Music By Candlelight, Ex Cathedra at Lichfield Cathedral
Lichfield
Music ranging from John Joubert's Three Portraits and Vaughan Williams' dreamy Three Shakespeare Songs to droll arrangements of Singin' In The Rain and Summer Holiday.
Review: CBSO at Lichfield Cathedral
CBSO
Shani has an engaging stage presence, and in the world premiere of David Matthews’ Toward Sunrise he drew a colourful, expressive performance.
Review: Elizabeth Watts and Audrey Hyland at Tardebigge Church
Retail & Consumer
This was a pretty dark programme. Thomas Traherne settings by Finzi and Elizabeth Maconchy could almost have been light relief, had Maconchy’s vocal lines not been so ferociously angular, her tonal language so overcast.
Review: Rachmaninov Vespers, Armonico Consort at St Mary's Church, Warwick
Retail & Consumer
This performance served Rachmaninoff beautifully, especially as the evening light began to fade.
Review: Tristan und Isolde at Longborough Festival Opera
Retail & Consumer
Longborough Festival Opera is staging Tristan und Isolde - and it’s testimony to the triumph of Longborough’s 2013 Ring cycle that no-one now seems surprised
Review: Pelleas Et Melisande, Welsh National Opera at Birmingham Hippodrome
Birmingham Hippodrome
Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande begins with a troubling mystery, and ends in near-total despair.
Review: Peter Pan, Welsh National Opera at Birmingham Hippodrome
Birmingham Hippodrome
Be assured: Richard Ayres and Lavina Greenlaw's new opera Peter Pan is most certainly still Peter Pan.
Review: Orchestra of the Swan at Stratford Arts House
Orchestra Of The Swan
Matthew Forbes's new orchestration of John Ireland's Cello Sonata for the Orchestra of the Swan effects a transformation - just not, perhaps, the one that you might expect.
Review: Venus and Adonis/Actaeon, Birmingham Conservatoire at Crescent Theatre Studio
Retail & Consumer
It was Eurovision all over again, as Birmingham Conservatoire paired two baroque operas from opposite sides of the Channel in an inspired double bill.
The Ice Break, Birmingham Opera Company review: A masterpiece
Retail & Consumer
It was probably CBSO's most artistically significant performance of the year in this fabulous Birmingham Opera Company production inside the derelict B12 Warehouse
Review: Welsh National Opera's The Magic Flute at Birmingham Hippodrome
Retail & Consumer
This surreal, Magritte inspired opera at Birmingham Hippdrome was a delight
Review: Chorus by Welsh National Opera at Birmingham Hippodrome
Retail & Consumer
Lesley Garrett flew aboard a giant pair of lips in this evening of choruses by Welsh National Opera
Lichfield Cathedral Chorus and Staffordshire Band at Lichfield Cathedral
Retail & Consumer
Richard Bratby reviews Lichfield Cathedral Chorus and Staffordshire Band at Lichfield Cathedral.
Review: William Tell by Welsh National Opera at Birmingham Hippodrome
Retail & Consumer
Welsh National Opera's regular David Kempster brought heroic tone and an affecting decency to the title role in this production
Review: Moses in Egypt by Welsh National Opera at Birmingham Hippodrome
Retail & Consumer
Richard Bratby finds plenty of striking moments in Welsh National Opera's production of Rossini's Moses in Egypt
Review: Carmen, Birmingham Hippodrome
Retail & Consumer
Richard Bratby takes in Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser's production of Bizet's Carmen with the Welsh National Opera
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