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5:4
Tag:

opera

  • FestivalsPremières

    World New Music Days 2025, Portugal (Part 1)

    by 5:4 June 15, 2025 • 08:15
    June 15, 2025 • 08:15

    Contemporary music festivals often feel the need to impose a theme on the proceedings, but in the case of this year’s World New Music Days, hosted in Portugal, it was less a theme than a rallying cry. “Thirst for Change” was the phrase hanging over the festival, though as with …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    AFEKT 2024 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 November 11, 2024 • 16:19
    November 11, 2024 • 16:19

    While the theoretical theme of this year’s AFEKT festival was music theatre, in practice what was projected strongest was intimacy, in terms of one-to-one communication. This was due to the fact that the festival focused primarily on solo performances given by, among others, members of Ensemble Musikfabrik, and even in …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Ultima 2023 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 October 2, 2023 • 13:47
    October 2, 2023 • 13:47

    Oslo’s annual contemporary music festival Ultima is currently in something of a transition, between outgoing artistic director Thorbjørn Tønder Hansen and incoming Heloisa Amaral, who took the helm in February this year. On the one hand, what i experienced during my three days there was broadly comparable to previous years, …

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  • Premières

    Proms 2023: the premières (Part 4)

    by 5:4 September 15, 2023 • 13:37
    September 15, 2023 • 13:37

    Some years ago I was at the Royal Opera House, watching and listening with a growing sense of disbelief and horror as a contemporary opera entirely failed to understand or meaningfully capture the source material upon which it was based. That was Thomas Adès’ wretched The Exterminating Angel, an embarrassingly …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Dark Music Days 2023 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 February 3, 2023 • 11:05
    February 3, 2023 • 11:05

    While it’s normal to feel a sense of familiarity returning to a festival year after year, it was stronger than usual at the 2023 Dark Music Days in Reykjavík since it was only 10 months since last year’s festival, which had been delayed due to the pandemic. It also served …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2022 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 November 30, 2022 • 14:27
    November 30, 2022 • 14:27

    People doing interesting things to objects doesn’t necessarily create interesting music. Can we agree on that? i don’t think that’s a particularly outrageous thing to say, though there were a number of times during my six days at this year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival when i found myself wondering otherwise. …

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  • ConcertsPremières

    Laura Bowler – The Blue Woman; Distance

    by 5:4 July 18, 2022 • 16:39
    July 18, 2022 • 16:39

    The opportunity to hear two new works by Laura Bowler within a single week isn’t just a exciting prospect, it’s a daunting one. Her subject matter has oscillated between the personal and the global, at both extremes seeking to address the pain and damage that far too many people are …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Olga Neuwirth – Orlando

    by 5:4 June 27, 2022 • 16:12
    June 27, 2022 • 16:12

    There’s something rather depressing about the fact that, despite nearly a century separating the publication of Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando in 1928, and the première of Olga Neuwirth‘s opera Orlando in 2019, the topic of gender identity and fluidity continues to be regarded as such a hot, controversial topic in …

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  • Festivals

    Proms 2021: Thomas Adès – The Exterminating Angel Symphony

    by 5:4 August 6, 2021 • 13:53
    August 6, 2021 • 13:53

    Last night’s Proms performance of Thomas Adès‘ The Exterminating Angel Symphony wasn’t a première (a so-called “London première” is not a première!) so i’m not technically including it as part of my annual survey of the season’s new works, but there’s a couple of good reasons to say a little …

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  • Concerts

    Birmingham Repertory Theatre Studio: Peter Eötvös – The Golden Dragon

    by 5:4 October 4, 2017 • 12:22
    October 4, 2017 • 12:22

    Let’s start at the end. It would be easy to fall into the trap of mistaking Peter Eötvös‘ music theatre piece The Golden Dragon, currently touring the UK in a production by Music Theatre Wales, as a serious, even moving piece. Or, rather, not mistaking it for that (few people, one hopes, are …

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  • ConcertsPremières

    Royal Opera House, London: Thomas Adès – The Exterminating Angel (UK Première)

    by 5:4 April 25, 2017 • 20:26
    April 25, 2017 • 20:26

    Among the plethora of quasi-quotations that litter (and that is the right word) Thomas Adès‘ operatic ‘take’ on Luis Buñuel’s cinematic masterwork El ángel exterminador, there was one quotation missing that, had it appeared at the very start, would have made at least the first two acts make total sense: …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    György Kurtág – Clov’s last monologue (a fragment) (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 5, 2017 • 11:06
    March 5, 2017 • 11:06

    For about as long as many people can remember, Romanian composer György Kurtág has been working on his first opera, based on Samuel Beckett’s Endgame. It’s been announced, postponed, re-announced and re-postponed to the point where one begins to wonder if it will ever become a reality, but if all goes …

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  • ConcertsPremières

    Purcell Room, London: Tim Benjamin and Francis Poulenc

    by 5:4 September 26, 2010 • 11:29
    September 26, 2010 • 11:29

    Last Thursday i journeyed to London for a small-scale concert at the Purcell Room. On paper, the concert was being given by the ensemble Radius, but in practice only the pianist was present, supporting a quartet of singers. i’ll admit to being disappointed about that; i’ve not encountered Radius before, …

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  • Miscellaneous

    George Benjamin – Viola, Viola; Three Miniatures for Solo Violin; Into the Little Hill

    by 5:4 March 5, 2009 • 17:33
    March 5, 2009 • 17:33

    George Benjamin is one of the first contemporary composers in whom i became interested, as a teenager. It’s difficult to pin down or articulate quite what i find appealing in his music, and in fact reasonably often i’ve found myself ambivalent about certain pieces. There’s an intensity and earnestness of …

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5:4
  • About
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  • The Lists
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    • Complete List of Ratings
    • Compositions explored on 5:4
    • Albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
    • Festivals reviewed on 5:4
    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
  • The Dialogues
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    • The Isolation Mixtapes
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