Britten Sinfonia/Wigglesworth – review

Queen Elizabeth Hall, LondonThe piece that raised this concert to an unforgettable climax was Mysteries of the Macabre, an arrangement of three soprano arias from György Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre made by Elgar Howarth, who conducted the opera's premiere in 1978. Dressed in dark wig, leather coat, fishnets and PVC, like a cross between Berg's Lulu and Madonna, Barbara Hannigan both sang and directed in a tour de force of performance and vocal brilliance. It was just as well that it finished the ...

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