A Little Mahler Every Day
18 – 24 April 2026
Saturday 18 April
To Vienna by plane
Vienna, Musikverein • Opinion on Simon Rattle as a Mahlerian conductor is sharply divided, and I find myself on both sides of the line. In this instance, whatever he sought to bring to this interpretation of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 by the Wiener Philharmoniker was utterly lost on me. Loud and often needlessly convoluted, his reading unearthed no revelation and left emotion at the door. The dying finale may have been the most successful passage, yet the sudden silence was spoilt by the creaking of the Musikverein’s ancient woodwork — probably made worse by a restless audience.
Vienna, Konzerthaus • Tugan Sokhiev led the Luxembourg Philharmonic in a phenomenal performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (with Louise Alder, Okka von der Damerau and the Wiener Singakademie), which grabbed me from the first bar and didn’t let go until the momentous, ecstatic finale. The attention to detail didn’t distract from the overarching drama. Sokhiev expertly worked with colours and subterranean tension to build towards a telluric, rapturous climax.
Sunday 19 April
Back to Paris by plane
Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées • Yannick Nézet-Séguin injected considerable dramatic relief into a concert production of Siegfried that blew the roof off the theatre. At the helm of a white-hot Rotterdam Philharmonic and a superb cast, he showed impeccable Wagnerian instincts by emphasising both the heavenly accents and the primal momentum of the piece. The stylistic shift at the beginning of Act 3 contributed to the epic’s arc in a novel way. It was my forty-fourth Siegfried, give or take, and one of the most consistently captivating.
Tuesday 21 April
Paris, Palais-Garnier • A performance of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha is akin to a ceremony, as I had discovered in English National Opera’s captivating 2013 production. Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber’s concept for the Opéra de Paris relied heavily on movement and dance, adding an extra visual narrative layer that probably tilted the piece closer to Einstein on the Beach than originally envisioned. The obsessive repetitions made for a hypnotic, almost religious experience, opening windows onto other worlds, like the descending fourths of Act 3, very reminiscent of the opening bars of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1.
Wednesday 22 April
Paris, Théâtre du Châtelet • It is a challenge to recreate the Astaire–Rogers alchemy without them. Kathleen Marshall, as I had already witnessed in Chichester where this production of Top Hat originated, didn’t quite rise to the occasion. Sure, the infectiously toe-tapping Irving Berlin score was given a decent reading in Chris Walker’s orchestration, but everything else felt faintly underwhelming: the leads, the set design, etc. Even the much-awaited ostrich-feathered dress failed to hit the mark. Oh well.
Friday 24 April
To Leicester by train, via London
Leicester, Curve • Having sadly missed the original production, I was hoping to catch a performance that would match my admiration for Kander & Ebb’s darkly wonderful Kiss of the Spider Woman. I even travelled to Melbourne especially to catch Caroline O’Connor’s performance as Aurora in 2019, but I wasn’t bowled over. Then came this co-production between Leicester Curve, Bristol Old Vic and Mayflower Southampton, directed with impeccable flair by Paul Foster, which came as close to perfection as one could reasonably hope. Armed with a brilliant cast (including the always fabulous Anna-Jane Casey as Aurora), Foster crafted a heart-wrenching, finely calibrated conception that made every storyline legible, whether in the grim prison cell at the centre of the stage, in Molina’s imagination… or somewhere in-between. Sarah Travis’s reduced orchestration managed to keep most of the magic of the original charts, even though those shrill descending flute lines during the title song were sorely missed. The quote from Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 was still there, though.
And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.