Italy
Shakespeare in Italy, BBC TwoFriday, 04 May 2012
Francesco da Mosto’s two-parter is ostensibly about the Bard and his fascination with the TV historian’s native Italy. In reality, it’s a film about da Mosto and his apparently God-given, below-the-belt hotness. Given the camera’s ceaseless drooling... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: Julius Caesar, Shakespeare's GlobeThursday, 03 May 2012
There has long been a conviction in Italian drama circles that there exists a “Special Relationship” between themselves and il Bardo di Stratford: something to do with the complexities of Elizabethan English syntax and the unusual amount of words of... Read more... |
Corpo CelesteFriday, 30 March 2012
Now here is something genuinely original and genuinely innovative coming out of Italian cinema, a very welcome surprise. Alice Rohrwacher’s debut feature film has a freshness of outlook and a sharpness of overview that could put many of her more... Read more... |
Filumena, Almeida TheatreSunday, 25 March 2012
If it's possible to take a loving and empathic approach to decidedly intractable material, the director Michael Attenborough achieves precisely that with Filumena, in which Samantha Spiro follows on from (and surpasses) Judi Dench in author... Read more... |
Turner Inspired: In the Light of Claude, National GalleryFriday, 16 March 2012
The British grand tourists not only fell in love with Italy. They fell in love with the landscapes of 17th-century ex-pat artist Claude Lorrain (1604/5-1682), depicting the Roman campagna in which the gods disported themselves. JMW Turner (1775-1851... Read more... |
CD: Porcelain Raft – Strange WeekendMonday, 13 February 2012
Remember Primal Scream’s woozy “Higher Than the Sun”? It’s a fair bet Mauro Remiddi does. His debut album as Porcelain Raft drifts through 10 foggy songs as disconnected, yet warmly melodic, as that era-defining excursion through the ether.Italian... Read more... |
Peter Gabriel announces WOMAD’s 15th season in SicilyThursday, 09 February 2012
Peter Gabriel announced WOMAD’s 2012 festival in Sicily this afternoon. It’s a year of anniversaries for the annual showcase of world music, with 2012 also marking the 30th year for Britain’s big brother festival. On a wintry afternoon, sharply... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Florence: The British Are GoingTuesday, 06 December 2011
In the 1450s in Florence, Alberti was working on the facade of Santa Maria Novella, Donatello and Fra Filippo Lippi were active, while Leonardo was born in nearby village of Vinci. And the English established a diplomatic presence. It has continued... Read more... |
DVD: MedeaTuesday, 06 December 2011
Among the many singularities of Pasolini’s films, the proportions of his narrative structure have to be the strangest. Here we, like the young Jason who grows before our eyes, get a six-minute introductory lecture from the hero's foster centaur... Read more... |
Louis Lortie, Wigmore HallMonday, 05 December 2011
It was Chopin time when I last heard Louis Lortie, and a typical London clash of scheduling allowed me to catch his effervescent Op 10 Études before pedalling like crazy north of the river for the second half of Elisabeth Leonskaja’s even bigger all... Read more... |
We Have a PopeFriday, 02 December 2011
In his home country, the release of the latest film by Nanni Moretti is always an event, all the more so in the case of We Have a Pope – a bittersweet psychological comedy with tinges of tragedy about a cardinal who is elected to the throne of St... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Rome: Abbado, Shakespeare and Santa CeciliaSaturday, 26 November 2011
Many of Italy's artistic institutions may have tottered or crumbled during the Berlusconi years, and the more capable new man in the Palazzo Chigi can only offer painful sticking plaster, yet one major orchestra has never sounded better. Of the two... Read more... |
