19th century
Guillaume Tell, Royal OperaTuesday, 30 June 2015
There are two operatic types who should leave Rossini’s epic swansong for the stage well alone. One would usually be a conductor who ignores many of the notes written by a master at the height of his powers, since even the least dramatic numbers... Read more... |
Richard Dadd: The Art of Bedlam, Watts GalleryFriday, 26 June 2015
The Watts Gallery in rural Surrey is a very genteel setting for a show by a figure who for most of his life was denied polite society. Richard Dadd spent 42 years in mental hospitals, first at Bethlem, then Broadmoor. As one can infer, he was... Read more... |
The Seagull, Regent's Park Open Air TheatreThursday, 25 June 2015
Hamlet instructs his players to "hold...the mirror up to nature”, advice taken literally in this arresting 120-year anniversary staging of Chekhov’s homage to the Bard. Jon Bausor’s set is dominated by a vast angled mirror, offering an appropriately... Read more... |
La Traviata: Love, Death and Divas, BBC TwoSunday, 21 June 2015
Verdi's La Traviata has become one of the best-loved and most-performed works in the operatic repertoire, but this is no thanks to sections of the English press. In this entertaining romp through the opera's history, presenters Tom Service and... Read more... |
Fighting History, Tate BritainSunday, 14 June 2015
For all the wrong reasons, the work of Dexter Dalwood serves as a useful metaphor for this exhibition. Trite, tokenistic and desperate to look clever, Dalwood’s paintings are as tiresomely inward-looking as the show itself, which is a dismal example... Read more... |
DVD: Home from HomeSaturday, 13 June 2015
Heimat was already one of cinema’s most extraordinary, majestic achievements. Edgar Reitz’s three series of films for German TV spent 53 hours exploring the humanity of the inhabitants of Schabbach, a Rhineland village much like Reitz's own roots,... Read more... |
Napoleon, BBC TwoThursday, 11 June 2015
It is irresistible to watch Andrew Roberts, the ambitious historian of one of history's most ambitious figures, narrating a three-part account of his hero’s life and times. He is giving us a superb analysis of Napoleon Bonaparte’s gifts, flaws,... Read more... |
The Elephant Man, Theatre Royal, HaymarketMonday, 01 June 2015
Beauty transforms itself into a beast but an inner grace shines forth regardless: such is the enduring power of Bernard Pomerance's stage play The Elephant Man, first seen in London almost 40 years ago and a Broadway semi-regular ever since. The... Read more... |
Pelléas et Mélisande, Welsh National OperaSaturday, 30 May 2015
Debussy completed only one opera (though he started plenty), but it’s the most perfect work imaginable, not only in sheer musical refinement and narrative precision, but in psychological penetration and above all in that exact grasp of the... Read more... |
Tetzlaff, LSO, Harding, BarbicanMonday, 25 May 2015
With Kavakos, Faust, Shaham and Skride already been and gone, and Jansen, Ehnes, Bell and Ibragimova still to come, the LSO’s International Violin Festival has nothing left to prove. We’re not short of star power in London’s concert scene, but even... Read more... |
Poliuto, Glyndebourne Festival OperaFriday, 22 May 2015
Fashion is a funny thing, in opera no less than the sartorial trappings that go with it (everything from tight, hipster trews to billowing ballgowns at last night's Glyndebourne season opening, in case you were wondering). Donizetti's classical... Read more... |
Carmen, English National OperaThursday, 21 May 2015
Crotch-grabbing, suggestions of oral and anal sex, stylized punching and kicking and other casual violence offer diminishing returns in your standard Calixto Bieito production. Sometimes a scene or two flashes focused brilliance, which only makes... Read more... |
