● AS WE ALL KNOW, OPERA IS THE ...

Music is a serious business. Whether it’s love, death, heartbreak, loneliness, power, conflict, destruction, sin, faith, hope, despair… you name it, every weighty subject and state of mind has been ta

Berlin Philharmonic/Kirill Petrenko Berliner Philharmoniker BPHR250561 56 mins Kirill Petrenko’s early career stint at the Meiningen Court Theatre, a place indelibly associated with Brahms, laid the f

Joyce DiDonato (mezzo), Time for Three Platoon PLAT29101 65:05 mins Is it a song cycle? An opera? Musical theatre? Kevin Puts’s new work Emily – No Prisoner Be, based on texts by Emily Dickinson, is a

Mathias Vidal, Véronique Gens, Sandrine Piau et al; Les Pages et les Chantres du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles; Les Ambassadeurs – La Grande Écurie/Alexis Kossenko Alpha Classics ALPHA1193 1

Yunchan Lim (piano) Decca 4871517 77 mins That Yunchan Lim is a remarkable pianist is self-evident in everything he plays. But let’s hope he doesn’t pay too much heed to the hype his singular talent a