Rossini’s Le Comte Ory
The Times: ‘The conductor David Parry is at his best, relaxed, full of the art that conceals art, and the orchestra responds with zinging verve.’
The Guardian: ‘Rossini was never more sparkling than in Le Comte Ory. Garsington’s Rossini series now offers it in a riotous production, built on fizzingly brilliant ensemble work from the singers and orchestra under David Parry.’

Conductor

Born in the UK. He is the Music Director of Almeida Opera and the Artistic Adviser of Opera Rara.

David Parry

The Guardian: ‘He is a man of the theatre with whom directors love to work; he is good with singers… He is a controversial and outspoken defender of the operatic form, and a passionate advocate of opera in English.’

Rossini’s La Donna del Lago
The Times: ‘... a top-notch score, brightly guided by conductor David Parry.’
Bloomberg: ‘David Parry holds the whole thing together with aplomb. He negotiates the switches between pathos and Rossini's pitter-patter with ease.’
The Independent: ‘In Act II, brilliantly abetted by the conductor David Parry, Alden allowed the music's singular beauties to emerge.’

Mozart’s Idomeneo
The Independent: ‘David Parry, who provided the new English translation, conducted a sharp-edged and fast-moving performance that properly reflected Mozart’s own concern for continuity and dramatic tension.’
The Spectator: ‘David Parry is superb, and so is the Opera North orchestra.’ The Financial Times: ‘David Parry is a conductor with the admirable virtues of dramatic punch and energy.’
The Times: ‘Everyone performs with conviction, and under the brisk, idiomatic baton of David Parry (whose English translation is used) the music packs a punch.’
The Sunday Telegraph: ‘David Parry conducted with exemplary sense of style.’
The Independent on Sunday: ‘Conductor David Parry cuts to the bones of Mozart’s score; razing any sentimentality or ponderousness from what is a vicious conflict between personal desire and patriotic sacrifice.’

31 July 2010 
Beethoven's Fidelio
Bizet's Carmen
Donizetti's Don Pasquale , The Elixir of Love ,
Lucia of Lammermoor
Gounod's Faust , Faust (abridged)
Leoncavallo's Pagliacci , Cav & Pag
Mascagni's Cavalliera Rusticana
Mozart's Don Giovanni , Idomeneo , The Marriage of Figaro
Puccini's La bohème , Tosca , Jane Eaglen sings Tosca , Turandot
Rossini's The Thieving Magpie
R. Strauss Der Rosenkavalier highlights
Verdi's Aida , A Masked Ball , Ernani , Il trovatore , Nabucco , Verdi - A Celebration
Wagner's The Flying Dutchman
Baroque Celebration
Recitals: Sir Thomas Allen , Barry Banks , Christine Brewer Bruce Ford 1 , Bruce Ford 2 , Jennifer Larmore ,
Della Jones , Yvonne Kenny 1 , Alastair Miles ,
Diana Montague 1 , Diana Montague 2 , Dennis O'Neill 1 , Dennis O'Neill 2 , Alan Opie , Andrew Shore ,
John Tomlinson 1 , John Tomlinson 2
Donizetti's Emilia di Liverpool ,
La Romanzesca e L'Uomo Nero ,
L'Assedio di Calais , Maria de Rudenz ,
Pia de' Tolomei , Rosmonda D'Inghilterra
Renée Fleming sings Rosmonda D'Inghilterra ,
Ugo Conte di Parigi , Zoraide di Granata
Mayr's Medea in Corinto ,
Jane Eaglen sings Medea in Corinto
Mercadante's Emma d'Antiochia ,
Orazi e Curiazi
Meyerbeer's Il Crociato in Egitto ,
Margherita d'Anjou
Pacini's Carlo di Borgogna ,
Maria Regina d'Inghilterra
Rossini's Bianca e Falliero , Otello ,
Ricciardo e Zoraide , Rossini Gala ,
Rossini Three Tenors ,
Bruce Ford - Serious Rossini
Essential Opera Rara: Mercadante's Zaira
Artist's Collections: Yvonne Kenny ,
Ferme tes Yeux
Susan Patterson
Mozart's Idomeneo
Verdi's A Masked Ball ,
Ernani , Nabucco ,
Verdi - A Celebration
Recitals: Jennifer Larmore ,
Alan Opie
Soprano

Born in the USA

International Record Review:
Verdi‘s Nabucco
‘All ears, of course, are on the Abigaille, the one Verdi role that makes Lady Macbeth seem a walk in the park, and Susan Patterson does not disappoint. The voice is powerful from top to bottom and she sings fearlessly, 

The Philharmonia Orchestra

The Philharmonia Orchestra was founded by Walter Legge in 1945. Vladimir Ashkenazy is Conductor Laureate of the Philharmonia Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras is Principal Guest Conductor and the Principal Conductor Christoph von Dohnányi. It has received the Evening Standard Outstanding Ensemble Award, Royal Philharmonic Society's Large Ensemble Award, Royal Philharmonic Society's Best Concert Series in 1997 for Clocks and Clouds: The music of György Ligeti.

The Guardian: Adès’ Powder Her Face
‘Powder Her Face began life as a chamber opera, though the Overture, Waltz and Finale - reorchestrated for the Philharmonia, who gave the first performance at Aldeburgh this year - transforms the original's sparse textures into a pointillistic phantasmagoria, its exuberance finally collapsing into shards of disillusionment. It is a fine showpiece for the Philharmonia, who played it with bittersweet finesse.’

Mahler’s Third Symphony
The Times: ‘Mahler’s Third Symphony really was the vindication not only of the regenerated acoustic of the hall (Royal Festival Hall), but of the Philharmonia’s happy decision to take on Esa-Pekka Salonen as principal conductor from 2008. The vividly individuated solos, the chamber-like transparency of ensemble, and the assured pacing and structuring of the vast first movement were very much a result of his inspiration. Horns, brass and percussion found a new focus and the offstage posthorn a new and magical balance.’
The Independent: ‘Mahler wrote nothing more flabbergasting than the first movement of the Third Symphony. As acoustical work-outs go, this one has all the highs and lows - the piccolo and E-flat clarinet-led marching bands, the growling lower brasses coming up through seismic string basses. Great vistas open up from nowhere and need to feel overwhelming, not oppressive. They did. It was like the music itself had been spring-cleaned. Salonen took a broad view of this poetic and rabble-rousing movement, but extremes of tempo rubato were accommodated, too, with the wild pay-off of the first movement sprinting to its trumpet-driven

Beethoven's Fidelio
Berg's Wozzeck
Bizet's Carmen
Donizetti's The Elixir of Love ,
Lucia of Lammermoor
Gounod's Faust , Faust (abridged)
Humperdinck's Hansel & Gretel
Mozart's Don Giovanni , The Marriage of Figaro
Puccini's La bohème , Madam Butterfly , Tosca ,
Jane Eaglen sings Tosca , Turandot ,
Puccini Passions
Rossini's The Thieving Magpie
Smetana's The Bartered Bride
Verdi's Aida , Verdi - A Celebration
Baroque Celebration
Recitals: Barry Banks , Christine Brewer ,
Bruce Ford 1 , Elizabeth Futral ,
Yvonne Kenny 1 , Jennifer Larmore ,
Alastair Miles , Diana Montague 1 ,
Diana Montague 2 , Dennis O'Neill 1 ,
Dennis O'Neill 2 , Alan Opie , Andrew Shore , John Tomlinson 1 , John Tomlinson 2
finishing line more thrillingly than I've ever heard it. The  Philharmonia brass really were extraordinarily accomplished - not least the solo trombone with his wintry orations and the posthorn, whose flawless offstage solos became the still centre of the whole piece.’

The Daily Telegraph: Dvorak's New World Symphony
'When music has become too popular for its own good (not necessarily through its own fault), it needs the revitalising agent of a conductor such as Belohlavek. With the Philharmonia on top form, he reminded us not only how freshly melodic the piece is - Dvorak was homesick for his native Bohemia as much as he was keen to kickstart an American national music - but also how darkly dramatic it can be, especially in the turbulent finale.’

Donizetti's Emilia di Liverpool , L'Assedio di Calais ,
Maria de Rudenz , Rosmonda D'Inghilterra
Renée Fleming sings Rosmonda D'Inghilterra
Ugo Conte di Parigi ,
Mayr's Medea in Corinto ,
Jane Eaglen sings Medea in Corinto
Mercadante's Orazi e Curiazi
Meyerbeer's Dinorah
Pacini's Maria Regina d'Inghilterra
Rossini's Otello , Rossini Three Tenors
Essential Opera Rara: Mercadante's Zaira
Ricci's La Prigione di Edimburgo
Mary Plazas
Bizet's Carmen
Donizetti's The Elixir of Love
Gounod's Faust , Faust abridged
Mozart's Don Giovanni
Puccini's Turandot , Puccini - passions
Recitals: Bruce Ford 1 , Della Jones , Diana Montague 1 , Andrew Shore
Soprano PMF Scholar, A Kathleen Ferrier Award winner  

Born in the UK

Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux
The Independent: ‘Mary Plazas sings Elizabetta, displaying her versatility as a singing actress in this bloody tragedy... Plazas successfully (and seemingly effortlessly) negotiates her virtuoso role with its range, ornamentation and – in the closing Vivi, ingrato – expansive yet restrained emotion.’
The Guardian: ‘Elizabeth was nothing if not a self-styled diva,

snarling the more vicious moments of the text and caressing the softer ones…’

MusicWeb International: Vivaldi’s Orlando Furioso
‘Susan Patterson is magnificent; her voice is smooth and subtle.’

Boito’s Mephistopheles
The Spectator: ‘Susan Patterson is a heartfelt Margarita, exquisite in the garden scene, harrowing in prison. She is also Helen of Troy, even more at home in this act...’
The Times: 'magnificently engaging portrayals - a singer in terrific voice.’

The Daily Telegraph: Puccini's La Rondine
‘The Magda of Susan Patterson… was a full-hearted and generous portrayal.’

Pacini's Maria Regina d'Inghilterra
Rosalind Plowright

and Mary Plazas’s scintillating coloratura becomes an explosive expression of the queen’s histrionics… the outstanding Plazas is supported by a strong cast.’
The Sunday Times : ‘…it makes for riveting music drama, especially when it is sung with such

Mezzo-soprano PMF Scholar

Born in the UK. Awarded an OBE in 2007.

Wagner’s Die Walküre
Opera ‘...but the best single performance of the evening came from Rosalind Plowright as Fricka. Grandly dressed as a powerful Victorian matron, she fielded plenty of convincing mezzo tone that was secure and direct enough to make Wotan's quailing before her admonishment entirely credible. Here was the perfect balance between words and notes that Wagner needs.’
The Sunday Telegraph: ‘It was thrilling to hear Rosalind Plowright in such lustrous vocal and dramatic form as Wotan's wife Fricka.’
The Daily Telegraph ‘The duel with Fricka (the splendidly indignant Rosalind Plowright, in excellent voice) crackled…

Donizetti's Mary Stuart ,
Janet Baker sings Mary Stuart
Humperdinck's Hansel & Gretel
Verdi's Aida , Otello
Verdi - A Celebration
Christopher Purves
Beethoven's Fidelio
Mozart's The Magic Flute ,
The Marriage of Figaro
Rossini's The Thieving Magpie
Verdi's A Masked Ball
Essential Opera Rara
Ricci's La Prigione di Edimburgo

Bass-baritone

Born in the UK

Bach’s St Matthew Passion
The Times: ‘Christopher Purves proved a model of warm-hearted profundity – tinted by the very human anguish the baritone found in the haunting moments before Jesus’ arrest.’
The Guardian: ‘Purves captured the genuine terror Agony in the Garden, and the deep sorrow of Christ’s subsequent discovery of his sleeping disciples.’

Donizetti's Emilia di Liverpool , L'Assedio di Calais ,
Maria de Rudenz , Rosmonda D'Inghilterra ,
Renée Fleming sings Rosmonda D'Inghilterra ,
Ugo Conte di Parigi
Mayr's Medea in Corinto ,
Jane Eaglen sings Medea in Corinto
Mercadante's Orazi e Curiazi
Meyerbeer's Dinorah
Pacini's Maria Regina d'Inghilterra
Rossini's Otello , Rossini Three Tenors
Essential Opera Rara: Mercadante's
Maria Stuarda regina di Scozia , Zaira ,
Ricci's La Prigione di Edimburgo
Artist's Collections: Bruce Ford Serious Rossini ,
Yvonne Kenny 19th Century Heroines
Donizetti's Lucia of Lammermoor
Puccini's Tosca ,
Jane Eaglen sings Tosca
Rossini's Barber of Seville
Smetana's The Bartered Bride
Verdi's Aida , Ernani
Recitals: Alan Opie
Peter Rose

Bass

Born in Canterbury, UK

Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Opera Critic: ‘… the imposing Peter Rose demonstrated complete mastery of the comic role with impeccable pacing and phrasing and a lush bass voice that could be both darkly venomous and gleefully animated.’
The Sydney Morning Herald: ‘After a resonant and expansive first aria, Peter Rose, as the caricatured Turkish oaf, Osmin, didn't initially seem wild enough in his first display of extremism, Solche hergelauf'ne laffen, but in the second and third act the

blend of comic exaggeration and fine singing was artfully balanced.’

Wagner’s Parsifal
Der Merker: ‘The evening's discovery was the debut of Peter Rose as Gurnemanz: If you did not know he is English, you would never have guessed it. His German... was more intelligible than that of a "real" German. His capable, controlled bass, brightly coloured and with beautiful modulation, was created for Wagner.’
Wiener Zeitung: ‘Not forgetting Peter Rose, whose Gurnemanz vocally fits like a glove.’

Andrew Shore

Baritone

Born in Oldham, UK

Vaughan Williams’s Sir John in Love
The Independent: ‘Andrew Shore's blustering charisma, here amplified by billowing plus-fours and bravura facial hair, is ideal for the title role.’
The Financial Times: ‘as comfortable and witty a portrait as anyone could wish, blessed with this singer’s immaculate diction and timing.’
The Times: ‘Andrew Shore’s brilliant Falstaff rightly dominates: a wonderfully rounded (in every sense) creation in tweed plus-fours with exactly the right mix of swagger, vanity, pathos and, at the end, redeeming grace.’
The Stage: ‘Andrew Shore’s inimitable Falstaff unsettles the social epicentre.’
musicOMH.com: ‘Andrew Shore as Sir John is as good as one would expect from this seasoned singer and consummate comic

Berg's Wozzeck
Donizetti's Don Pasquale ,
The Elixir of Love
Mozart's Don Giovanni
Puccini's La Bohème , Tosca ,
Jane Eaglen sings Tosca ,
Puccini passions
Rossini's The Barber of Seville
R. Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier highlights
Verdi's Falstaff
Recitals: Andrew Shore ,
Della Jones , Dennis O'Neill 2 ,
John Tomlinson 1
Sir John Tomlinson
Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle
Donizetti's Mary Stuart ,
Janet Baker sings Mary Stuart
Handel's Julius Caesar ,
Janet Baker sings Julius Caesar
Massanet's Werther
Mozart's The Magic Flute
Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov
R. Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier highlights Verdi's Rigoletto ,
Verdi - A Celebration
Wagner's The Flying Dutchman
Recitals: John Tomlinson 1 ,
John Tomlinson 2

Bass

Born in Lancashire, UK. In 1993, he won a Grammy Award for Bartok's Cantata Profana and in February 2007 he was honoured with the "Special Award" at the Laurence Olivier Award Ceremony. He was awarded a CBE in 1997 and Knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours of 2005.

The Guardian: ‘Tomlinson has been the UK's most distinguished bass for perhaps two decades now, and the first quality that leaps into mind when thinking of him is one of sheer bigness: not in a physical sense, but in an ability to lift a performance merely by walking on stage, hogging every scene

Donizetti's Gabriella di Vergy
Verdi Originals: Verdi's Macbeth

without being ungenerous enough to steal it… Though long a favourite at Covent Garden, his best known association has been with the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, the Bavarian theatre Wagner designed to house his own operas, and where he appeared every summer from 1988 to 2006, bar one. Wotan was his first role there, and he owned it for the next 12 years; nobody in Bayreuth's history has sung the role more times in Wagner's own theatre than he has… "Wotan's the best," says Tomlinson, whose speaking voice still makes clear his Lancastrian roots. "As a role it's got the whole gamut, from the tenderest, most intimate moments to the most grandiose. He is the mainspring of the whole Ring story, after all.’

Schubert's Winterreise
musicOMH.com: ‘John Tomlinson's eagerly awaited debut performance of Schubert's Winterreise was attended by the cream of British singers (such as 

Janice Watson
Janáček’s Jenůfa
Recitals:
Sir Thomas Allen
Barry Banks ,
Christine Brewer
Dennis O'Neill 2

Soprano. A Kathleen Ferrier Award winner

Born in the UK

The Independent: ‘Janice Watson is one of those British singers whose versatility and professionalism has led her to be taken for granted: no diva stories surround her, but a star she undoubtedly is.’

Puccini’s Madam Butterfly
The Financial Times: ‘Janice Watson is blessed with a silvery soprano that was made for Mozart or Strauss. As long- suffering Butterfly, she wisely stayed with what she does best, floating top notes, shaping lambent phrases, underplaying the drama. Like Minghella’s production, she had class. Neither of them chooses to sock the audience in the solar plexus.’
The Guardian: ‘There’s a new Butterfly in the form of Janice Watson. Wide- eyed and beautiful, she suggests both the girl’s naivety and the deep reserves of feeling that drive her on. There’s a touch of metal beneath the silky tone. He body shakes and twists with delight and pain. It’s a fine performance. The evening belongs… to Watson and Kempster, who inject a considerable

fervour as here, by a cast that any of our national opera companies would be proud to field. Mary Plazas’s feisty Elizabeth, Susan Bickley’s passionate Sara and David Kempster as the Duke of Nottingham are thrilling in their angry confrontations.’
The Daily Telegraph: ‘…the redoubtable Mary Plazas wins through by virtue of the sheer ardour of her singing, warmed by imaginative phrasing and sensitive musicality.’

Adès’ Powder Her Face
The Guardian: ‘... the portrayal of the Duchess didn't seem quite as heartless as it might - partly because of the dignity in soprano Mary Plazas's exemplary performance.’
The Times: ‘... the dark sensuality and wounded dignity of Mary Plazas’s Duchess... powerfully re-creates the pain of an aristocracy stranded in a fractured society.’

Puccini’s Madam Butterfly
Opera: ‘That lovely and courageous soprano Mary Plazas transcended the glitzy artifice of the production with heartfelt and beautifully judged singing as Butterfly.’
The Sunday Times: ‘Madam Butterfly stands or falls by its heroine, of course, and in the title role, the diminutive Mary Plazas triumphs… her Cio-Cio San is emphatically a “piccola Butterfly”: delicate, fragile, supremely musical and, finally, gut-wrenchingly truthful. Even if Minghella’s production were less watchable than it is, Plazas would be unmissable.’ 
The Observer: ‘Mary Plazas makes a beguiling Butterfly, singing beautifully...’
The Stage: ‘Mary Plazas’ Butterfly is extraordinary, the tiny figure disturbingly highlighting the

story’s more perverse aspects. She judges superbly the delicate balance between resolve and vulnerability, never plays victim. Vocally, she husbands her resources skilfully never to compromise the power of the ‘spinto’ vocal lines.’
The Times: ‘There’s one touching and beautifully observed performance, from the tiny-framed but great-hearted Mary Plazas in the title role.’ The Telegraph: ‘Mary Plazas… is a lovely singer, who imbued every note with feeling and instinctively musical shape.’
The Independent: ‘… she is a musician through and through and her wealth of experience brings much that is personal and touching, not least the way cadences melt away, now hopeful, now hopeless.’

Manchester Evening News: A Christmas concert with the Hallé Orchestra
‘The outstanding contribution last night came from Mary Plazas… how relaxed and vivacious a performer she is in lighter stuff  whether it's Walking In The Air, Winter Wonderland, or leading the audience in a singalong Twelve Days Of Christmas.’

This was an enthralling occasion, received with a thunderous ovation.’
The Financial Times: ‘As Fricka, Rosalind Plowright has never sounded in better voice, or acted with such confidence: a triumph.’
The Independent: ‘Rosalind Plowright's imperious Fricka is scarily impressive, withering with her words and actions - a borderline dominatrix.’
New York Times: ‘… Fricka - sternly and strongly portrayed by Rosalind Plowright.’

Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur
The Evening Standard: ‘In the role of her rival, the Princess of Bouillon, Rosalind Plowright has all the poise and vocal caliber one could wish for. It’s a commanding performance.’

The Times: ‘The night took off in Act II as the princess (Rosalind Plowright, an explosion of passion in slinky killer black) waited with alarmingly genuine yearning for Maurizio to appear – a display of vocal power, note-bending and curdles that shifted the evening up several gears… and it is worth going for Miss Plowright alone.’
The Guardian: ‘Rosalind Plowright is wonderful at capturing the princess’s fury and fading glamour.’
The Independent: ‘As the Princess who dispatches her rival with a bowl of poisoned violets, Rosalind Plowright – a stage legend, having outfaced Janet Baker in Maria Stuarda – looks a killer from the start, and singing to kill for, too.’
The Financial Times: ‘Rosalind Plowright is a perfectly pitched villainess.’
The Spectator: ‘It is especially delightful to hear Rosalind Plowright, as the Amneris-like villain in stupendous vocal form, and looking and acting as a great star.’

Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina
The Sunday Times: ‘As directed by David Pountney, Marfa, in the statuesque form of Rosalind Plowright, is the focus of the drama... Although the role lies low for Plowright, she grows in stature and vocal confidence as the drama reaches its climax, emerging as a Brönnhilde-like redeemer in the final Immolation scene.’
The Spectator: ‘The fanatical Marfa was the charismatic Rosalind Plowright...  She was almost omnipresent, and seemed the most powerful personality in the whole drama.’

The Independent: ‘For much of the opera… (the)… anti-hero is overshadowed by Christopher Purves’s charismatic Balstrode…’

Berg’s Wozzeck
New York Times: ‘Christopher Purves, in the title role, is outstanding, his voice achingly in search, never conscious of what it possesses: a soft solidity and gleam.’
The Times: ‘Christopher Purves is compelling and warmly musical in the title role.’
The Independent: ‘Christopher Purves a marvellous, almost bel canto yet shambling Wozzeck.’ The Sunday Times: ‘Christopher Purves’s Wozzeck is one of the finest things this artist has done on the operatic stage. He sings the notes with beautiful, firm, dark tone and creates a pitiful figure of heroic fortitude, until he snaps.’
The Independent: ’Purves’s impersonation of the title role – intelligently and musically sung, as ever – is so complete as to eradicate his normally affable stage presence. For one and a half hours, he is Wozzeck.’

Britten’s Peter Grimes
The Sunday Times: ‘Christopher Purves’s sympathetic but tough Balstrode could hardly be bettered...’
The Daily Telegraph: ‘Framing them is a superb supporting cast, among whom I would single out Christopher Purves (Balstrode).’
The Times: ‘Nor can I recall a production that produced such plausible characters… Christopher Purves's great-hearted Balstrode…’

Berlioz’s L'enfance du Christ
The Times: ‘Peter Rose was outstanding as the generous carpenter who takes Mary and Joseph in from their wanderings.’ MusicOMH.com: ’Peter Rose was excellent as the Father and Polydorus – hugely commanding and well-projected.’

R. Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier
The Seattle Times: ‘Peter Rose gave us the best-sung Ochs imaginable, with considerable vocal strength at both ends of the compass (including a rich store of powerful notes below the staff), and he also proved a magnetic actor who can make you laugh, wince and frown in a single phrase.’
The Opera Critic: ‘The farcical engine is driven by Baron Ochs, played by bass Peter Rose with great hormonal energy. Rose's Baron enjoys every half-second of his caddishness, and takes advantage of every comic opportunity. His head-on-a-swivel act, stuck between spy Valzacchi's advisements and spy Annina's cleavage, had me sinking to the floor in laughter.’
Seen and Heard International: ‘Peter Rose is already a known and admired quantity in Seattle, where he has previously been seen and heard in Tristan und Isolde and Rusalka. His sonorous bass… and commanding presence made a formidable figure of Baron Ochs, his lecherous cynicism proof against every rebuff until the comprehensive comeuppance he suffers in the last act.’
Seattle Weekly: ‘Peter Rose sings powerfully as Baron Ochs and manages the comic element perfectly. This barren ox is pompous and vulgar, but a person and never a cartoon.’

actor: gross, reprehensible but ultimately hugely sympathetic in his final humiliation.’
The Opera Critic: ‘Already well into the skin of the fat Knight from his portrayal in Verdi's Falstaff, Andrew Shore did all that could be done here with the title role, his mobile baritone serving the music admirably and his light-footed acting perfectly judged to each incident and circumstance.’

Wagner’s Rhinegold and Siegfried

The Times Literary Supplement: ‘… two of the roles are outstandingly performed: Tom Randle's Loge and Andrew Shore's Alberich. There is true pathos and suffering in this Alberich during his defeat at Wotan's hands, In both Randle's and Shore's cases the extra dimension is fine acting: they make their characters immensely real, and deeply convincing.’
The Stage: ‘Shore is about the best Alberich now singing.’
The Spectator: ‘Andrew Shore’s gnawed Alberich is so fine an interpretation, which quite transcends the rest of the production.’

The Times Literary Supplement: Rossini’s The Barber of Seville
'Andrew Shore's Doctor Bartolo is outstanding, and deserves to go down in the annals as a paradigm for the role.’

The New York Times: Donizetti’s Elisir d'Amore
'The British baritone Andrew Shore had a successful Met debut as Doctor Dulcamara, the charlatan who peddles an elixir of love, actually a bottle of Bordeaux that nevertheless does the trick and emboldens the stunted Nemorino to take a chance with Adina. Mr. Shore brought the husky voice and comic skills of a fine character actor to his portrayal.’

The Guardian: ‘… his was an intimate as well as intricate portrayal of a human falling to pieces, and his close attention to the text and idiomatic German gave full value to the words.’
Evening Standard: ‘John Tomlinson, celebrated Wagnerian bass and operatic phenomenon who can scale a vast orchestra with a whisper, has turned to that most intimate of forms: Lieder. Tomlinson has always been a fearless musician and his performance… was heartfelt and often revealing.’

Wagner’s Das Rheingold 2007
Of working with Tomlinson, Rosalind Plowright says 'It's a sheer joy. He's a real Wotan; he brings to the role a wealth of experience. It's an utter privilege to perform the Ring with him and I've told him so myself.'
The Times: ‘John Tomlinson — is magnificent. He may be the wrong side of 60, which makes his duet about Freia’s apples of eternal youth with another durable British veteran, Philip Langridge (mercurial as Loge), particularly poignant. But Tomlinson is such a mesmerising figure, and he makes Wotan so intriguingly complex: capable of vile tricks, but also of being moved to tears by the sight of Alberich’s flayed victims. Even his age works to his advantage. Here is a Wotan exhausted by the mission to build Valhalla, desperate to realise his vision, yet conscious that his powers are waning by the minute.’
The Independent: ‘… in John Tomlinson's elemental Wotan, we sense the restless man within the god. Tomlinson owns this stage.’

Simon Keenlyside, Philip Langridge, Ann Murray and Joan Rodgers) and by many of Tomlinson's large number of fans. We were not disappointed as Sir John delivered a magnificent reading of Schubert's late song cycle… capturing and convincingly delivering the drama and beauty of the journey.’

Evening Standard: ‘Who can complain at having John Tomlinson, with 20 years of experience, once more taking up Wotan's spear. Always best to have your heroes sung by heroes.’

Wagner’s Die Walkure 2007
The Stage: ‘John Tomlinson’s Wotan remains the lynchpin of this Ring... his comprehensive understanding of Wotan’s dilemma is presented with consummate artistry and total commitment. He is without question a great exponent of the role.’
The Guardian: ‘John Tomlinson is giving us one of the finest Wotans of his career, superbly judged in its emotional subtlety and depth.’
Evening Standard: ‘John Tomlinson, expressive and seemingly inexhaustible in voice and physicality, is giving the performance of his career. He lives each moment with agonising verisimilitude, and has the skill to conserve his voice almost to the end in this marathon role. He may know Wotan intimately, yet he finds fresh ways to reveal his human complexity.’

emotional charge to a production that could so easily become bland.’
The Sunday Telegraph: ‘There is one reason not to miss it, and that is Janice Watson making her debut in the title role. She may not be Puccini’s most convincing child bride in Act 1, but she finds a core purpose, passion and stillness that transcends the staging’s slick, alienating contraptions. She soars ecstatically and tragically in the love duet and gives a marvellously interior One fine day. The production lays on her isolation with a trowel, but she takes it into another realm. She is certainly a poor little Butterfly to be reckoned with.’

Janácek’s Káťa Kabanová
Opera: ‘She was a less vulnerable Katya than her predecessors in this staging, less on the verge of madness in the early scenes... But more than any other Katya I have heard, she conveyed the overwhelming nature of her passionate love for Boris and this gave extra power and poignancy to her singing of the last scene with him.’
The Times: ‘Janice Watson is a brave new Katya, open, vulnerable and raw, as her wings beat against a world whose tyrannies will push her towards the abyss.’
The Financial Times: ‘In Janice Watson the production has its most glamorous Katya to date. Her soprano has a sharp-edged beauty, sometimes touching on hardness, that is almost ideal for the role and she sang with heartfelt commitment. Although there was something naïve about the young woman she presents – Watson’s Katya has more in common with romantic heroines such as Manon or Mimì than the self-aware free spirit of Janácek’s drama – she cut a sympathetic central figure.’
The Daily Telegraph: ‘… from the first bars of the prelude, it was the music’s desperate melancholy which dominated. All that sadness was embodied in Janice Watson’s lovely Katya. It’s a glorious role for any competent lyric soprano and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone fail with it, but Watson is up there with the best. Although the tone gleams and the phrases soar, she never acts the heroic diva.’
The Evening Standard: ‘Then there is Janice Watson's superb Katya… this Katya has backbone as well as sweet innocence. As she tries to fantasise her way out of a brutal marriage, every broken hope registers in her voice and face. In a remarkable opera, hers is a remarkable performance.’

The Spectator: ‘Any Katya would wilt beside her, but the radiant, dreadfully vulnerable Katya of Janice Watson makes the opera more painful than ever by being both so open and so gentle, irresistible to a woman of Kabanicha’s vengefulness. Watson is a glorious stage presence... The long scene in which she keeps failing to say what she meant to is as nearly unbearable as any I have seen on any stage.’
The Guardian: ‘Janice Watson, beautiful yet agonised as Katya, gives her finest performance to date.’