Spain
Prom 17: Antonio Márquez Company, BBC Philharmonic, MenaFriday, 26 July 2013
JThis year’s Proms have been accompanied by an unusual choral drone, a monotony of voices whinging about the prodigious heat at the Albert Hall. For one night only no one was complaining as the temperature gauge went up to something like 111. You’ve... Read more... |
Quimeras, Paco Peña and Dance CompaniesSunday, 14 July 2013
Happy truisms first: Paco Peña is still the greatest of flamenco guitarists, he works with a consummate team of regulars in the most vibrant of dance-art and he keeps it fresh by scouring the world for different players or ensembles to complement... Read more... |
BlancanievesThursday, 11 July 2013
Although Blancanieves seems to come on the back of the world-conquering The Artist, it was actually conceived before the French tribute to silent-era cinema. Rather than being about silent cinema, Blancanieves is a silent Spanish take on Snow White... Read more... |
Don Carlo, Royal OperaSunday, 05 May 2013
An operatic truism still doing the rounds declares that for Verdi's Il trovatore you need four of the greatest singers in the world. For Don Carlo, his biggest opus in every way, you need six. Nicholas Hytner's Covent Garden staging hits the mark... Read more... |
I'm So ExcitedMonday, 29 April 2013
"What makes you think all this is funny?" businessman Ricardo Galán (Guillermo Toledo) snaps after a particular high-spirited episode in Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar's latest, and it's undoubtedly a remark that will resonate with some members of... Read more... |
Don Quixote, Mikhailovsky Ballet, London ColiseumSunday, 31 March 2013
If you want virtuosity, there’s only one place to be in London right now, and that’s watching the Mikhailovsky’s fine production of that demented old warhorse, Don Quixote, with Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev in the leads.Don Quixote is one... Read more... |
Israel Galván/ Farruquito, Flamenco Festival, Sadler's WellsTuesday, 26 March 2013
The annual Sadler’s Wells Flamenco Festival is a hidden treasure-house of brilliance, too quietly sneaking into London in the unappealing limbo between winter and spring, but surely one of the great global gatherings of the dazzling individualists... Read more... |
Tomatito, Sadler's WellsThursday, 21 March 2013
He looks the part: straggly, desert hair and haunted fizzog. He sounds the part: opening dry rhythmic strumming over unchorded strings; acrobatic trills; percussive attack. Flanked on the left by two singers, Kiki Cortinas and Simón Román, and a... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Turina, Eleni KaraindrouSaturday, 09 March 2013
Bach: Harpsichord Concertos Retrospect Ensemble/Matthew Halls (harpsichord and director) (Linn)This release fizzes with energy. I’ve long preferred hearing these concertos played on a modern piano. But listening to Matthew Halls’s harpsichord... Read more... |
Sleep TightThursday, 28 February 2013
When Cesar (Luis Tosar) sees Clara (Marta Etura) leave for work in the mornings, he wants to wipe the smile from her face. And as the barely noticed caretaker of her Barcelona apartment building, he’s in the perfect position to do so. Cesar is a... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Marcos Valle, Five Star, Julian Cope, Carlos NúñezSunday, 03 February 2013
Marcos Valle: Marcos Valle/Garra/Vento Sul/Previsão do TempoIn 1968, having already done time in Sérgio Mendes & Brazil 66, Marcos Valle was selling bossa nova and samba to America, appearing on The Andy Williams Show in a blazer and roll... Read more... |
Mørk, LPO, Nézet-Séguin, Royal Festival HallThursday, 22 November 2012
Mozart and Wagner were the opposite compass points of Richard Strauss’s classical-romantic adventuring, and Amadeus has often made an airy companion to the rangy orchestral tone poems in the concert hall. By choosing Haydn instead as the clean... Read more... |
