ROH
The Sleeping Beauty, Royal BalletTuesday, 01 November 2011
The Sleeping Beauty was the ballet that kissed the then Sadler’s Wells Ballet into stardom in 1946; after a string of poorly conceived Beauty productions, today’s Royal Ballet hurtled back 60 years in 2006 to try to recapture some of that historic... Read more... |
How many French horns can play Wagner at one time?Saturday, 15 October 2011
The business of setting musical records does not normally have much to do with actual music. The longest an oboeist can play with circular breathing, the fastest piccolo player, the highest note sung by a human etc – these are not about music-making... Read more... |
Jérôme Bel, Cédric Andrieux, Royal Opera House Linbury StudioTuesday, 04 October 2011
Dance is eating itself. Or dancers are eating themselves, rather. It's on-trend to defy the idea of the mute dancer, and instead have them verbally explaining themselves, their motivation, their art. This year’s Dance Umbrella launched last night... Read more... |
The Metamorphosis, Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera HouseThursday, 22 September 2011
My acid test for whether a show’s worth going to is, specifically, whether it was worth driving 27 miles into town and 27 miles back, spending, say, three or sometimes four hours travelling to see something 80 minutes long. Not often is it worth... Read more... |
Jewels, Royal BalletWednesday, 21 September 2011
On six more occasions you can have an ideal experience of dance by visiting the Degas exhibition at the Royal Academy and then going to see Balanchine’s Jewels at the Opera House. The first part of this trio of abstract ballet gems, Emeralds, evokes... Read more... |
Faust, Royal OperaMonday, 19 September 2011
That Faust - Gounod's curdled Victorian dessert of an opera, an overwhipped melange of melodrama and misogyny, topped with grand 19th-century dollops of religiosity - achieves a level of profundity that at one stage nearly had me in tears is an... Read more... |
Il Trittico, Royal Opera HouseTuesday, 13 September 2011
You don't need to buy into the loose hell-purgatory-paradise trajectory of Puccini's one-act operas to greet the triptych as his comprehensive masterpiece, full of wry interconnections, orchestral wizardry and grateful if tough vocal writing.... Read more... |
La Bayadère, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera HouseSunday, 14 August 2011
The bayadere bears on her shoulder a vase of holy water, and the story of the ballet La bayadère is of her refusal to compromise. She could better her life in two political deals: become the high priest’s mistress, or later, when bitten by a... Read more... |
Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera House: The HighlightsSunday, 14 August 2011
The Mariinsky Ballet has just completed a three-week season, with terrific highs (and the odd low). This was the 50th anniversary of the Mariinsky's (then Kirov's) first London visit, in 1961, and it is worth highlighting the role impresarios Victor... Read more... |
Anna Karenina, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera HouseWednesday, 10 August 2011
It is claimed that the philosopher GE Moore had a fantasy. After many years’ work, Tolstoy had finally finished War and Peace. Sonya had copied it out for the umpteenth time. The thing goes off to the printer. Peace reigns. And then, in... Read more... |
Scotch Symphony/ In the Night/ Ballet Imperial, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera HouseFriday, 05 August 2011
Great Mariinsky ballerinas are a breed apart, even from Bolshoi women. They take the stage with a consciousness of entitlement that’s thrilling to watch, and when this almost sacred sense of mystique and grace instilled in St Petersburg comes with... Read more... |
Don Quixote, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera HouseTuesday, 02 August 2011
It is all too easy to be cynical about the ballet version of Don Quixote. With almost no part for the title character, it is a 19th-century Russian take on faux-Spanish dancing, a farce in which the barber Basilio longs for the charming Kitri, while... Read more... |
