Welcome to our weekly update with recommendations for concerts, opera, dance and theatre to stream while most venues are still closed, selected from our library of over 900 “(live) streamed” and “on demand” events. Enjoy!
A Festival of New Music
at the Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin
Invited by Daniel Barenboim and Emmanuel Pahud, ten of today’s most exciting composers have treated the unusual juxtaposition of distance and intimacy that we all find ourselves dealing with.
From 9th to 12th July, you can watch the online premieres, framed by works of Pierre Boulez.
Live from the concert hall
BAMBERG
To celebrate his 93rd birthday, Herbert Blomstedt conducts Arthur Honegger and Johannes Brahms
GLASGOW
In a series of four live-streamed concerts, Steven Osborne plays an all-Schubert programme
LONDON
John Wilson conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra in a specially created online performance
The show must resume!
With an online concert on Saturday 11th July, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra‘s new season will be the first one to start up post-pandemic – congratulations to them!
Expect a colourful season from Gershwin to Beethoven and Korngold to Wagner with some of the music world’s biggest names: Janine Jansen, Neeme Järvi, Cédric Tiberghien, Diana Damrau and many more.
Our latest reviews
ZURICH (live)
Sabine Devieilhe and Benjamin Bernheim give a charming concert; and a Verdi world premiere
PARIS (video)
A double cause for celebration for Klaus Mäkelä, the Orchestre de Paris and the Philharmonie
ÉVIAN (video)
Irresistible Ravel and autumnal Brahms from Beatrice Rana and
Gautier Capuçon
A view from the US
by Hilary Stroh
“I think this time of retreat from the official venues of culture has taught me the importance of grass-roots cultural life, and how the highest does not – and will not – stand without the lowest.”
A view from Scotland
by David Smythe
“Early on in lockdown, the ecologically precious River Tay reed beds caught fire leaving scorched acres, and a pall of smoke that could be seen from Edinburgh, a bleak symbol.”
Recommended Opera
L’Orfeo
Nederlandse Reisopera
Monique Wagemakers
A mesmerising visual spectacle and thing of infinite beauty
Elektra
Festival d’Aix-en-Provence
Patrice Chéreau
Evelyn Herlitzius, Waltraud Meier, Adrianne Pieczonka:
a stellar leading trio
Le Comte Ory
Opéra Comique
Denis Podalydès
A sparkling musical and theatrical celebration of Rossini’s opera
Recommended Concerts
Bach, the Universe & Everything
Join the OAE for a thought-provoking Bach cantata and a talk about the Importance of Human Contact
Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich
Recorded in June,
Paavo Järvi conducts two wonderful wind serenades by Richard Strauss and Antonín Dvořák
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Sir Andrew Davis conducts Britten’s Four Sea Interludes and Vaughan Williams’
The Lark Ascending
Recommended Theatre
Blueprint Medea | Finborough Theatre
Based on interviews with Kurdish fighters living in the UK and loosely inspired by Euripides’ Medea, it explores eternal questions of passion, war, women’s freedom and love
The Deep Blue Sea | National Theatre
Terence Rattigan’s masterpiece tells the story of a woman’s tempestuous affair with a former RAF pilot and the breakdown of her marriage to a High Court judge
Recommended Ballet
The Sleeping Beauty
Ballet Estable del Teatro Colón | Music by
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
For the young (or young at heart)…
The Hunting of the Snark
All aboard! Based on Lewis Carroll’s poem, it is a side-splittingly funny play bursting of witty songs
The Magnificent Three
Gather up your posse, it’s time to head out to the Wild Frontier for a rootin’-tootin’ adventure… YEEHAW!
What a Wonderful World
It brings to life the much loved song in a story which encourages little ones to see the beauty of the world