Alexandra Coghlan

Feshareki/BBC Singers/Goddard review – goddess-inspired soundscape stuck in the great unknown Shiva Feshareki’s Divine Feminine fails to find its focus despite soprano Emma Tring’s incandescent, fearless performance of Celtic deity Brigid

A new piece by Shiva Feshareki was many things, but not an opera: www.theguardian.com/music/2026/m...

RPO/Edusei/Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha review – the makings of a classic Strauss South African soprano Rangwanasha proved she is the real deal in a performance of Strauss’s Four Last Songs that’s let down by the RPO’s oddly pinched, poorly tuned backing

www.theguardian.com/music/2026/f...

Tamara Stefanovich review – inspired and insightful programme celebrates Kurtág at 100 The pianist’s recital was a masterful essay in sound where the Hungarian composer’s short piano works were woven into and out of Debussy, Liszt and Bach

A brilliantly-programmed birthday homage to Kurtag from Tamara Stefanovich: theguardian.com/music/2026/f... review @theguardian.com

It looks a lot like the ROH one to be fair! Fascinating to see what they (can) do with it beyond the scheduled short run. I assume it would be too cost-prohibitive in a smaller venue, and is it really something people would return to in a revival soon?

Weill: The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny at English National Opera | Live Review - Opera Now You’ve got to hand it to ENO: why go quietly when you can set the place on fire before you leave?

It's Brecht-lite from ENO's new The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (but a terrific Widow Begbick from Rosie Aldridge) www.opera-now.com/content/revi...

A classic revived: Opera North's Peter Grimes | The Critics' Circle A review of Opera North's 2026 revival of Phyllida Lloyd's classic 2006 staging of Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes.

Phyllida Lloyd's Grimes is still serving the chills for Opera North, with an impressive central turn from John Findon: criticscircle.org.uk/a-classic-re... review @ccmusicuk.bsky.social

LSO / Chan / Stankiewicz review – Matthews’s oboe concerto is dense and dynamic The London Symphony Orchestra’s Olivier Stankiewicz was the soloist for the premiere of Colin Matthews’s oboe concerto; Rachmaninov and Bartók followed, with Chan compelling and clear

Incisive clarity from Elim Chan, and a meaty new oboe concerto from Colin Matthews for the LSO: www.theguardian.com/music/2026/f...

Così Fan Tutte – ENO’s clever Coney Island take on Mozart’s opera Read our review of Così Fan Tutte, English National Opera's candy-striped staging of Mozart's anarchic opera, starring Lucy Crowe

Some classy singing and a staging with lots to say (under the clutter) but this revival didn't really gel for me: www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/cosi... @thestage.co.uk

Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi review – big, generous, provocative music-making on a small stage Grammy-winning Giddens fused folk, opera, jazz, pop and classical elements in a recital ‘honouring composers who don’t often get called composers’

www.theguardian.com/music/2026/f...

LSO/Treviño/ Kopatchinskaja review – he conducts with a coiled-spring muscularity Robert Treviño’s sure hand led the London Symphony Orchestra through mystical Messiaen and cinematic Rachmaninoff with Patricia Kopatchinskaja precise and playful in Márton Illés’s Vont-tér

After an impressive jump-in in 2017, Robert Treviño finally returns for a scheduled visit to the LSO: www.theguardian.com/music/2026/j...

The new issue of Gramophone has arrived, in which @alexandracoghlan.bsky.social and I reassess the Giulini Don Giovanni:

Riot Ensemble review – from meditations to mariachi in new music of maximal difference The new music group’s engaging programme of works by Corie Rose Soumah, Anna Meredith, Alex Paxton and Eden Lonsdale moved from the swaggering to the subtle

Lovely arc of a programme from Riot Ensemble: joyous sonic assault from Anna Meredith, maximalist madness from Alex Paxton, and a drifting cool-down from Eden Lonsdale:
www.theguardian.com/music/2026/j...

A soundscape to shock: murder, harmony and immortality - The Tablet But the murders (of his wife and her lover) are perhaps the least interesting part: disposing of an unfaithful spouse was par for the course in 16th-century

We talk more about the murders than the music, but Gesualdo shocks on pure aesthetics in the Gesualdo Six's effective new staging. Plus Rattle's Makropulos Affair: www.thetablet.co.uk/arts/a-sound...

I will absolutely!

No you’re quite correct! He then moved into theatre-sound and has been doing amazing things since.

The Mass for the Dead

My lovely friend and very talented sound-designer and composer Max Pappenheim has created the first of a new series of podcast ghost stories - beautifully produced, scored and v atmospheric. E Nesbit's deliciously creepy The Mass for the Dead kicks it off:
open.spotify.com/episode/2jWa...

CBSO/Yamada review – Moore’s trombone adventures into Fujikura’s sonic oceans Dai Fujikura’s elusive trombone concerto was given its UK premiere by Peter Moore, who made its colours and textures sing; a persuasive but perhaps too sunny reading of Mahler’s first symphony followe...

Gosh Peter Moore is good... A new trombone concerto and a sunny Mahler 1 from Yamada & the CBSO: www.theguardian.com/music/2026/j...

Shimmer review – National Youth Orchestra welcome the new year in bracing, stylish style In a programme of early 20th- and 21st-century music, it was in the contemporary works that the new cohort of teenagers were most impressive

First review of the year from me: a bracing start to the season from the National Youth Orchestra: www.theguardian.com/music/2026/j...

The 10 best classical concerts of 2025 Classical music is strapped for cash and moral support – yet the creativity and determination in the face of that deserves several very loud cheers

Michael Church, @jessicaduchen.bsky.social and I all chose our Top 10 classical events of 2025: inews.co.uk/culture/arts...

The highlights of classical music in 2025 from @theartsdesk.bsky.social team of critics:

The Tablet asked its critics to talk about the art that means Christmas to us. Here’s me on Finzi, Lucy M Boston and Alison Uttley:

Beare’s Chamber Music festival review: string supergroup dazzle with Schubert, Strauss and Schoenberg The likes of Janine Jansen, Timothy Ridout and Kian Soltani were part of a starry lineup giving this London audience a taste of heaven on earth

Last review of the year from me. A seriously lush launch-programme for a seriously starry new chamber music festival. Jansen, Sitkovetsky, Quatuor Ebene, Soltani, Grosz, Ridout and more: www.theguardian.com/music/2025/d...

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for Barbara Hannigan and Bertrand Chamayou (The Guardian)

On Saturday evening, soprano Barbara Hannigan performed works by John Zorn, Messiaen and Skryabin with pianist Bertrand Chamayou in a concert described as 'lyrical, primal, ravishingly beautiful' by Alexandra Coghlan for The Guardian 💫

Hannigan/Chamayou review – strange and beautiful musical magic Barbara Hannigan and Bertrand Chamayou were exhilarating in John Zorn’s monumental Jumalattaret; a beautifully intimate performance of Messiaen’s Chants de Terre et de Ciel completed the evening

Who else could sell out John Zorn and Messiaen on a Saturday night? Mesmerising ***** concert from Barbara Hannigan and Bertrand Chamayou theguardian.com/music/2025/d...
@theguardian.com

The best classical music to book in December, from Handel's Messiah to Hitchcock The festive season offers plenty of musical delights, seasonal or not - here's our pick of the finest

My top picks for UK classical & opera in December (festive and non) for the I Paper: inews.co.uk/culture/arts...

I'm a classical music critic - Les Mis is as good as most great operas I may be cancelled for saying so, but the West End's longest running musical, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, would make Puccini proud

The I Paper asked me to get opinion-y to mark the anniversary of Les Mis: inews.co.uk/culture/arts...

Die Sache Makropulos, Royal Opera House | OPER! Um Endlosigkeit geht es in Janáčeks Die Sache Makropulos, und darum, ein Ende machen zu können. Das tut auch Regisseurin Katie Mitchell, die sich mit dieser Inszenierung in Covent Garden von der Opern...

Some thoughts on Katie Mitchell's operatic farewell - the Royal Opera's Makropulos Case: www.oper-magazin.de/kritiken/auf...

Any Glyndebourne Members at the Open Day tomorrow (8 Nov) do consider coming along to my lecture on The Birth of Opera. There will be naughty aristocrats, musicological scandals, bags of Monteverdi, and a little help from my friends Sarah Lenton and Martyn Bennett

Ah, interesting - I missed that one clearly…

Ha. They can’t *all* have camels…