Tosca » ENO

Director – David McVicar

Listen carefully, this is what it’s all about!

As I have mentioned before, opera suffers from too many chefs. But ENO has assembled a team of astonishing chemistry. In the pit, Mark Shanahan’s unhurried, confident and expressive conducting perfectly mirrors McVicar’s generous dramatic pace…ENO’s chorus sounds magnificent while the orchestra too shows a more focussed tone than it has enjoyed of late. » Anna Picard – The Independent on Sunday

…but above all this is musical triumph, Mark Shanahan leading the orchestra from a beginning of Bergian spikiness through the doom laden stages of the tragedy. Act I swaying precariously from comedy to blasphemy, Act II a measured plod through the interstices of horror, equipped with all the refinements of Scarpia’s torture chamber, sickly neo-romantic slurred strings to churning tremolos; Act III a brief flowering of false hope before the final, extremely effective, death…this is a sickeningly good Tosca. » Robert Thicknesse – The Times

There is certainly no lack of musical excitement. Mark Shanahan gives some of his more illustrious colleagues a lesson in conducting Puccini. The beauty of the scoring, its velvety textures and succession of very telling solo instrumental passages, emerged with a refreshing clarity and the orchestra played magnificently. » Michael Kennedy – The Sunday Telegraph

Mark Shanahan conducts an account of the over-familiar score that is both exciting and musical… » Hugh Canning – The Sunday Times

The stars for me are Peter Coleman-Wright…and the conductor Mark Shanahan, who brings out most of the many felicities in this surprisingly sophisticated score. » David Mellor – The Mail on Sunday

…it sounded good too, the Te Deum thundering through the Coliseum, with bells and distant canon as convincing as I’ve ever heard them. Mark Shanahan’s conducting rightly indulged the honeyed decadence of the string portamento and hit the nodal points forcefully. » Edward Seckerson – The Independent

Mark Shanahan, accompanying his singers considerately and getting a ripe Puccini sound. » Richard Fairman – Financial Times

There’s plenty of Puccinian power from the pit, too, with the conductor, Mark Shanahan getting all the pulsating drama from this spine tingling score. A high voltage evening, as chilling as thrilling a Tosca as I have seen in many a year. » David Gillard – The Mail

…and with outstanding musicality from the orchestra under Mark Shanahan’s baton, the production is a classic. » A.C. Grayling – TLS

La Traviata » Opera North

Director – Annabel Arden

Musically, the chorus and orchestra of Opera North are in fine form under the electrifying conducting of Mark Shanahan, who invests the evening with a passionately urgent momentum. » Alfred Hickling – The Guardian

Mark Shanahan’s dry, sensual, instinctive conducting – the brindisi here actually sounds improvised… From Shanahan and Arden, the kind of show that can make a cynic weep. » Anna Picard – The Independent on Sunday

Annabel Arden’s unadorned staging leaves the music free to yield its own drama, duly milked form the pit by Mark Shanahan at his considerable best. This is music-theatre at its most powerful and affecting. » Anthony Holden – The Observer

Mark Shanahan conducted an excellent performance of the score. » Michael Kennedy – Sunday Telegraph

…a tight, emphatic orchestral performance and some highly cultured string playing. » Robert Thicknesse – The Times

La Boheme (Leoncavallo) » ENO

Director – Tim Albery

Great stuff for the orchestra, rewardingly played, finely scored and beautifully conducted by Mark Shanahan with easy expressive flow and a mature well-studied sense of the rhetorical climate. » Tom Sutcliffe – London Evening Standard

…and in the pit mark Shanahan sells the score for all – and possibly more than – it is worth. » Stephen Pettitt – Sunday Times

…Mark Shanahan’s sympathetic conducting. » Nick Kimberley – Independent on Sunday

Mark Shanahan’s energy… » Richard Fairman – Financial Times

Mark Shanahan conducted with affection and brio. » Rupert Christiansen – Daily Telegraph

Mark Shanahan conducts robustly…the spirit of the score comes across well enough. » Andrew Clements – The Guardian

Tim Albery directing put as much energy as he could into bringing the work to life, as did Mark Shanahan conducting. » Fiona Maddocks – Observer

Conductor Mark Shanahan brings out the best in the orchestral pit, making the music as lovingly romantic as he possibly can. » Michael Darvell – What’s On in London

Queen of Spades » RNCM

Director – Stefan Lansky

David Lloyd Jones was to have conducted …but illness supervened and his place was taken by Mark Shanahan, who secured excellent rapport between pit and stage and drew eloquent playing and singing from orchestra and chorus. The woodwind throughout and the urgency of the strings in the great surging melody with which Tchaikovsky underpins much of the score were especially impressive. » Michael Kennedy – The Sunday Telegraph

A Gamble well worth taking

The orchestral playing alone is worth the price of a ticket, with shapely phrasing from the strings and a Tchaikovskian intensity in woodwind and brass solos. The conductor, Mark Shanahan,… clearly has not only an ear for the opera’s dark timbres but a good sense of theatre, allowing as much space to the lyrical set-pieces as the more sensational moments, and holding the disparate elements in the score firmly together. » Lynne Walker – The Independent

Mark Shanahan, brought inspiring life from the score and some vivid playing from the orchestra. » Manchester Evening News

Mark Shanahan secured splendidly rich and colourful playing from the orchestra and welded the whole performance into a convincing unity. With its grand-opera set pieces threatening to divert attention from the personal drama, this is an opera that can easily fragment, but there was no danger of this under Shanahan. » Opera Magazine

Barber of Seville » ENO

Director – Jonathan Miller

The Barber can be wonderful comedy even when imperfectly voiced. But it needs brio. Mark Shanahan, conducting, came nearer to supplying this from the pit than anyone on stage. » The Independent

Healthy, clear, white toothed conducting from Mark Shanahan, though, helped to remind us that humour is not the only worthwhile ingredient in Rossini’s score and thankfully restored a sense of purpose to the whole event. » The Evening Standard

Conductor Mark Shanahan’s immaculate drilling goes for elegance rather than fizz. » The Guardian

The finale was carefully prepared for take-off by the conductor, Mark Shanahan, who kept the ensemble air-borne until the end of Act I, and also obtained limpid playing from the orchestra in the overture and storm interlude. » Opera Magazine

Mark Shanahan adopts a highly musical slow-burn approach… the playing is poised and perfect, and the familiar classic sounds fresher because of the careful pacing. » Tom Sutcliffe – Evening Standard