Artists to watch: Teng Li

Interview

"As a soloist, I have more license to share my independent voice and vision for the piece. As principal violist in the orchestra, I get to support the vision of the conductor by leading my section to perform as one voice. I feel lucky to have the opportunity to wear different hats in my career, as a soloist, chamber musician and as an orchestral musician."

In review: Erwartung/Twice Through the Heart

Review

Erwartung and Twice Through the Heart both hurl listeners directly into the action. We are presented with questions: are these women killers? Are they crazy? Are they liars? Are their memories to be trusted? Sitting above the immediate curiosity with these women are larger questions about how women in particular are pushed to violence.

Don't miss: Waltz Rivals

News

It promises to be a lovely Sunday afternoon here in the T-dot, so if you're looking for some beautiful music and beautiful people (myself excluded, #selfdeprecationischarmingright), stop on by. The show is about 75% sold out but there are still some great seats left, since there isn't a bad seat to be found in the beautifully restored Jane Mallett Theatre.

Talking with singers: Gyula Nagy

Interview

He takes seriously the artistic work he does as a singer, yet the come-what-may attitude that Nagy has about his pursuit of singing is one of his biggest advantages. "If I hadn't gotten this [position at the ROH], then probably I would have gone on auditioning on my own," he says of the Jette Parker programme's influence on his career. "I would have managed somehow. It would have been really different, but there would have been another way."

Joel Ivany: "We're throwing a salon."

Interview

"You're going to be mingling in the lobby and in the auditorium, and you're going to be meeting these people from the salon, which are the students from the school." It's a "play-within-a-play" idea, where the Cendrillon audiences live in the same world as the singers who perform the opera. The members of the cast each have two roles to play: their part in Viardot's opera, and the "character" who exists offstage during the salon evening.

Talking with directors: Frederic Wake-Walker

Interview

"I love going into these places and working with kids," says Wake-Walker. "It's wonderful. I learn so much." He jokes that working primary school students is "pretty much the same" as directing the singers at La Scala, and adds that for any aspiring director, young people offer valuable learning experiences. "Kids ask questions that even the pros at La Scala are sometimes a little bit embarrassed to ask."

The TSO does Danny Elfman's music from the films of Tim Burton

Review

They played from Pee-Wee, Batman, Batman Returns (the Catwoman theme was excellent), Dark Shadows, Big Fish, Alice in Wonderland, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and of course, Edward Scissorhands. The TSO under the baton of Ted Sperling were in top form.

In review: Simone Piazzola at Wigmore Hall

Review

The pair paid homage to their Italian roots with a programme of Donizetti, Verdi, Mozart, and songs by Paolo Tosti. In fact, the Tosti songs that Piazzola and Vaccaro chose were first performed in London - and did you know: Tosti taught at the Royal Academy of Music, became a British citizen in 1906, and was knighted by King Edward VII in 1908?

Don't miss: Glory Denied at Nashville Opera

Interview

"The moment I enjoy most though, is again in Act II, when Young Alyce sings a letter she has written to Young Jim after he is first stationed in Vietnam. The letter is filled with optimism and love, and it captures those small mundane details of life that so often touch our hearts most deeply."

Lohengrin Redux: an opera fanfic contest

News

"Summon your muse and tell us what happens to Lohengrin after he gets on the swan-less boat at the end of the opera. Did his boat turn into a time machine and bring him to America's shores to clean up in the aftermath of our presidential election? Perhaps Lohengrin jumps ship entirely and decides he'd rather dance to Tchaikovsky ballet music."