John Amis online

Sunday, June 14, 2009

ELIOGABALO

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Cavalli in Hampshire First performance in England (Grange Park Opera, June 6) of one of forty or so operas by Cavalli. Who he? Pier Francesc...
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Tuesday, June 09, 2009

A SEXLESS LULU

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There was booing at the close of Covent Garden’s latest new production Alban Berg’s opera Lulu , provoked by a staging that was a no-no, no ...
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DONZETTI IN INGHILTERRA AND HOLLAND PARK

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Donizetti had obsessions. Including one with the United Kingdom? Beside Roberto Devereux, which opened the Holland Park Opera season in Lond...
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Friday, May 01, 2009

MAAZEL HITS THE ANVIL

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In case you live anywhere near Basingstoke and haven’t yet visited the Anvil Concert Hall (opened 1994) let me wave a flag for it. First –cl...
Friday, April 17, 2009

A TAKE ON HANDEL’S ALESSANDRO

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If that great expert on Handel’s operas, Winton Dean, took three large pages to explain the plot of the Master’s 1726 Alessandro , your scri...

DIE FEEN IN PARIS

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It seems that anything composed by Richard Wagner will draw applauding crowds these days. The Ring is always sold out and just now all perfo...
Saturday, March 28, 2009

PARSIFAL UNSTAGED

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Busy Russian at the helm Asked whether she preferred drama on radio or television, the lady opted for radio. Why? “Because the scenery is be...
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Friday, March 20, 2009

MELBOURNE’S NEW CONCERT HALL

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The capital of Victoria has a new music room, a large recital room seating a thousand, no proscenium, just a stage abutting the first row of...

THE VIRTUOSO

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Sonya Orchard, Harper-Collins The Virtuoso is a remarkable book by a young Australian musician turned novelist – rave reviews before and si...

MUSIC IN THE OMAN

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A quarter of a century ago the Sultan of Oman decreed a visit to his capital Muscat of the London Symphony Orchestra; I went as a scribe and...
Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Prokofiev: A life of Music

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Wednesday 18 March 2009 Prokofiev: A life of Music John Amis and Tait Memorial Trust Awardees John Amis together with Mary Jean O’Doherty, J...
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DIE TOTE STADT TRIUMPHS

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Interest in Korngold grows apace. His superb film scores (2 Oscars) have made people keen about Erich Wolfgang, 1897 – 1957. His middle name...
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Thursday, November 20, 2008

MATILDE DI SHABRAN

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Rossini’s Runt? The background to this opera is readworthy: Rossini composed most of Matilde di Shabran (where dat ? probably Iraq) in 1822...
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Tuesday, November 11, 2008

NEW OPERA HOUSE IN WEXFORD

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Glory be! Wexford has a fine new opera house, sprung Phoenix-like on the site of the old Georgian house, standing tucked away in a little st...
Wednesday, October 22, 2008

BOHÈME REVIVED YET AGAIN

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October 11, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Puccini’s Bohème is revived for the 22nd time in the production by John Copley. That surely i...
Tuesday, October 07, 2008

CAV and PAG

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Which opera tugs most persistently at your heart-strings? Surely is must be Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana . He hits your emotions roughly ...

A cut-price Falstaff

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Verdi’s Falstaff on the cheap must be the verdict on Pimlico Opera’s production 21 September at the Grange Opera House (near Alton, Hampshi...

The Calisto Show

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Submarines in the pit of the Royal Opera House? No, what at first glance looked like periscopes were in fact theorbos in triplicate, the lon...
Tuesday, September 30, 2008

SMAULL SONG BUT GOOD SONG

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You may have seen advertisements in this journal for a summer course for singers August 1 to 9 and I went to see what goes on. To start with...
Sunday, August 24, 2008

Dog Bites Soprano

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New Glyndebourne Opera August 10 The premiere at Glyndebourne of a new, commissioned opera by Peter Eötvöșa, a Hungarian composer previously...
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John Amis
Six weeks in a bank was enough for him to decide to live by and with music. Selling records and writing about them for a high-class gramophone shop, working with London Philharmonic, Symphony and Royal Philharmonic, organising concerts for Myra Hess at the National Gallery and for Michael Tippett whose secretary-dogsbody and friend he was, concert manager for Beecham, music critic for The Scotsman, organiser of the Summer School of Music with William Glock at Bryanston and Dartington for 34 years, broadcaster on radio and TV for 40, during which time he interviewed some 500 of the most famous and interesting musicians, Hindemith to Bernstein, Cage to Swann, Stravinsky to Stockhausen. He has narrated parts in Façade, Peter and the Wolf, Enoch Arden and Babar the Elephant. For his 70th birthday made a CD with friends Leslie Howard, Steve Race, Malcolm Arnold, Donald Swann, Jeffrey Tate and Ian Wallace. His books include an autobiography Amiscellany, an anthology Words about Music and My Life in Music 1945 – 2000, A Photographer at the Aldeburgh Festival (Nigel Luckhurst) and Musicians on Camera (Lelia Goehr).
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