France
BBC Proms: Osborne, BBC Philharmonic, MenaSaturday, 23 July 2011
If much of the Austro-German repertoire is about hiking to a spiritual peak, the Franco-Spanish is about diving down to the orchestral depths. The music of Ravel, Debussy and Falla has beefy shoulders and powerful legs. But the vast watery expanse... Read more... |
English National Ballet, Roland Petit Triple Bill, London ColiseumFriday, 22 July 2011
An obsession with sex and death underlies many of the immortal works of 19th-century classical ballet. Giselle is seduced, La Sylphide does the seducing, the Sleeping Beauty is awakened by sex, the Swan Queen is an apparition of death to Prince... Read more... |
theartsdesk in La Rochelle: FrancofoliesTuesday, 19 July 2011
The French national holiday of 14 July might be marked by parades and fly-pasts in Paris, but here on the Atlantic coast it’s the central date for Francofolies, the annual festival dedicated to French music. La Rochelle hosted its first Francofolies... Read more... |
The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution, BBC TwoSunday, 17 July 2011
Who could argue that television isn’t a great medium for learning about art? In its pared-down, visually literate way it delivers what dull, theory-laden extrapolations often can’t (if only because artists don’t think that way when they make things... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Flanders: Return to Journey's EndFriday, 15 July 2011
The battlefields of the First World War are frequented most by secondary school groups and military history enthusiasts. And by David Grindley: a man for whom the play Journey’s End is an obsession, and his direction of it award-winning. RC Sherriff... Read more... |
CD: Florence Joelle - Kiss of FireFriday, 15 July 2011
I never thought I’d find myself saying that a French female vocalist reminded me of Howard Devoto. But there we are, what can you do? There’s just something in the way she sings the verses of “Hell be Damned and Look Out”: the pauses between words... Read more... |
Cinderella goes to the squareThursday, 14 July 2011
Sweetheart American mezzo Joyce DiDonato stayed firmly behind the proscenium arch for yesterday evening's Royal Opera performance of Massenet's Cendrillon - reviewed by theartsdesk on its opening night - but another Covent Garden regular, former... Read more... |
Last Year in MarienbadSunday, 10 July 2011
It is resonantly famous, picking up plaudits from the off, with one Sight & Sound commentator claiming in 1962 that it was the "greatest film ever made", for which he'd been waiting "during the last 30 years". That now seems slightly hysterical... Read more... |
Cendrillon, Royal OperaWednesday, 06 July 2011
After a heap of ashen revivals, it was time for the Royal Opera to take us to the ball in style. Which it does, for the most part. Of course, Massenet's "fairytale after Perrault" isn't Aida, Butterfly, Fidelio, Macbeth orTosca, all of which have... Read more... |
CD: Nouvelle Vague – Couleurs sur ParisTuesday, 05 July 2011
French interpreters Nouvelle Vague have a seemingly unsustainable path. Reinterpreting Anglo songs of the post-punk and new wave eras in unlikely semi-easy-listening settings (bossa nova, reggae, country and bluegrass) would appear to bring... Read more... |
Le Cercle de L'Harmonie, Rhorer, Barbican HallTuesday, 28 June 2011
While we are far from lacking in top early music ensembles in the UK, there’s no denying that the French have a special affinity for this repertoire. While The Academy of Ancient Music and The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment are virtuosic... Read more... |
CD: Mehdi Zannad - FugueThursday, 23 June 2011
Mehdi Zannad isn’t a familiar name, but he’s issued a raft of albums as Fugu and has been championed by Stereolab. His profile in Japan is good, and he’s composed soundtracks in his native France. Fugue, the first album released under his own name,... Read more... |
