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Francesco Cavalli’s opera L’Ormindo – a comic and moving tale of the loves and betrayals of two princes - was first presented in Venice in 1644. With a cast of nine singers and eight musicians the work is on a perfect scale to be staged in the new Sam Wanamaker Playhouse – a recreation of a candle-lit Jacobean theatre partnering Shakespeare’s Globe on London’s Southbank. L’Ormindo is a co-production between the new theatre and The Royal Opera and is directed by Kasper Holten with the music under the direction of Christian Curnyn. Tom Service is joined by Alexandra Coghlan, classical music critic of The New Statesman, and the writer and theatre critic Andrew Dickson to review this new production.Ìý

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Photo: © Stephen Cummiskey

Morley College in London is piloting a new course aimed at encouraging more young women to become conductors.Ìý Earlier this week Tom went to the college to meet the conductor Alice Farnham and Morley’s Director of Music AndreaÌýBrown to find out more about this trial course which is being attended by students from the UK’s junior conservatoires.Ìý

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The Russian composer Alexander Scriabin was born in 1872 and died in 1915. Although never absent from the mainstream of Russian music, the outside world has neglected him until more recently.Ìý Scriabin's thought processes were immensely complicated and he famously wrote "I am God" in one of his philosophical journals.Ìý As the London Symphony Orchestra launch their exploration of Scriabin’s complete orchestral works Tom discusses the composer’s life and music withÌý the LSO’s Principal Conductor Valery Gergiev, the pianist Dmitiri Alexeev and the musicologist Marina Frovola-Walker.

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