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Richard Bratby

Richard Bratby

The Spectator

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A dancing, weightless garland of gems: Stephen Hough’s piano concerto reviewed

A dancing, weightless garland of gems: Stephen Hough’s piano concerto reviewed
previous day 10

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Spreads emotions like jam: Festen, at the Royal Opera House, reviewed

27.02.2025 10

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Regents Opera’s Ring is a formidable achievement

Regents Opera’s Ring is a formidable achievement
20.02.2025 10

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

The thankless art of the librettist

06.02.2025 10

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Opera North’s Flying Dutchman scores a full house in cliché bingo

06.02.2025 10

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Full house / Classical music has much to learn from Liverpool

04.02.2025 2

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Full house / Classical music has much to learn from Liverpool

30.01.2025 1

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Full house / Classical music has much to learn from Liverpool

30.01.2025 20

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Classical music has much to learn from Liverpool

30.01.2025 30

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

The stupidity of the classical piano trio

16.01.2025 8

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Theatre / A miracle at the RSC: genuinely funny Shakespeare

Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale? Most subsidised theatres hanker for political relevance. Even so,...

06.01.2025 20

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

A miracle at the RSC: genuinely funny Shakespeare

Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale? Most subsidised theatres hanker for political relevance. Even so,...

02.01.2025 5

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Our verdict on Pappano’s first months at the London Symphony Orchestra

Sir Antonio Pappano began 2024 as music director of the Royal Opera and ended as chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. Around the...

02.01.2025 6

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Opera / Meet the king of comic opera

John Savournin has been busy. That comes with the territory for a classical singer – things often get a little hectic as the music world barrels...

17.12.2024 4

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Opera / Meet the king of comic opera

John Savournin has been busy. That comes with the territory for a classical singer – things often get a little hectic as the music world barrels...

17.12.2024 20

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Vivid, noble and bouyant: AAM’s Messiah reviewed

More than a thousand musicians took part when Handel’s Messiah was performed in Westminster Abbey in May 1791. It wasn’t the only item on the bill,...

12.12.2024 4

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Meet the king of comic opera

John Savournin has been busy. That comes with the territory for a classical singer – things often get a little hectic as the music world barrels...

12.12.2024 4

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Spellbinding: Herbert Blomstedt’s Mahler 9 reviewed

Ivor Cutler called silence the music of the cognoscenti. But there’s silence and there’s silence, and a regular concertgoer hears a fair bit of...

05.12.2024 10

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Opera / A keeper: ENO’s new The Elixir of Love reviewed

There was some light booing on the first night of English National Opera’s The Elixir of Love, but it was the good kind – the friendly kind, aimed...

30.11.2024 10

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Fails to ignite: Royal Opera’s Tales of Hoffmann reviewed

I couldn’t love anyone who didn’t love Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann. Everything – everything – is stacked against this opera. Offenbach...

14.11.2024 5

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

The Listener / The striking musical world of Welsh composer Grace Williams

Grade: A- There are neglected composers, and then there are Welsh composers. It’s just a question of geography. When Grace Williams’s Fairest of...

10.11.2024 4

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

One beauty – one turkey: Wexford Festival Opera reviewed

‘Theatre within Theatre’ was the theme of the 2024 Wexford Festival and with Sir Charles Villiers Stanford’s The Critic, that’s exactly what...

07.11.2024 5

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

A lively and imaginative interpretation of an indestructible Britten opera

Scottish Opera’s new production of Albert Herring updates the action to 1990, and hey – remember 1990? No, not particularly, and I suspect...

31.10.2024 7

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

You’re unlikely to see a better case made for this Bernstein double bill

It’s rare nowadays to see a new opera production that’s set in the period that the composer and librettist intended, but they do occasionally come...

17.10.2024 6

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Classical music / The BBC Singers Centenary Concert was toe-curling

When does a new opera enter the repertoire? Judith Weir’s Blond Eckbert has only had a couple of UK productions since its première at English...

16.10.2024 10

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Kings and cows / Staying at Charles III’s Transylvanian home

We hit downtown Zalánpatak at rush hour, and it was gridlocked. True, you get used to livestock on Romanian roads; the 30-minute gravel zig-zag...

14.10.2024 8

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Station frustration / Euston is the best of London

Euston Station has been in the news again, and that’s never good. After a summer of overcrowding and delays, public anger forced the Transport...

07.10.2024 10

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Heartfelt and thought-provoking: Eugene Onegin, at the Royal Opera, reviewed

The curtain is already up at the start of Ted Huffman’s new production of Eugene Onegin. The auditorium is lit but the stage is in darkness and...

03.10.2024 4

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

The problem with Klaus Makela

Klaus Makela is kind of a big deal. He’s a pupil of the Finnish conducting guru Jorma Panula – the so-called ‘Yoda of conducting’ – and he’s chief...

12.09.2024 3

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Aggressively jaded: Edinburgh’s Marriage of Figaro reviewed

‘Boo!’ came a voice from the stalls. ‘Boo. Outrage!’ It was hard not to feel a pang of admiration. British opera audiences don’t tend to boo; we’re...

29.08.2024 20

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Save our steam engines!

Last week, if you’d known what to listen for, you might have heard a chorus of miniature whistles in gardens across the UK. Other sounds too: the...

29.08.2024 10

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Britain’s youngest summer opera festival is seriously impressive

Waterperry is one of the UK’s youngest summer opera festivals: it started up in 2018, at the northern limit of the species’ natural habitat. You...

22.08.2024 20

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Left reeling / Edinburgh is ruined by the Festival

As an arts journalist, you know you’re getting old when you scan the Edinburgh Festival programme, and instead of thinking ‘Wow, look at all this,’...

16.08.2024 3

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

In defence of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Grand Duke

Artistic partnerships are elusive things. The best – where two creative personalities somehow inspire or goad each other to do better than their...

15.08.2024 10

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Forget the Proms and Edinburgh – the Three Choirs Festival is where it’s at

The Proms have started but there is a world elsewhere, and in Worcester Cathedral the 296th Three Choirs Festival set sail with a concert that...

01.08.2024 10

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

A major operatic rediscovery: Birmingham Opera Company’s New Year reviewed

This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before his time. One of the most thrilling aspects of the Tippett revival has been the discovery that...

18.07.2024 3

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Go whistle / I’m a total, unrepentant sportsphobe

It’s 1 a.m. in our small cathedral city and car horns are honking in jubilation. From down the street comes the sound of smashing bottles, and a...

17.07.2024 8

The Spectator

Richard Bratby

Sparky and often hilarious: Garsington’s Un giorno di regno reviewed

Hang out with both trainspotters and opera buffs and you’ll soon notice that opera buffs are by far the more trainspotterish. It’s the pedantry,...

11.07.2024 10

The Spectator

Richard Bratby