Buzz
Dave's Oscar momentWednesday, 12 May 2010I had a slightly surreal experience last night, when an actor playing the butler of a future Cabinet minister in Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband announced during the interval that David Cameron had just departed Buckingham Place en route to 10... Read more... |
Henze attends his own ElegyTuesday, 11 May 2010
Many of us younger opera-goers have never had a chance until now to see Hans Werner Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers in action. Opinions have been divided on its status as one of the great operas of the last half-century, but it certainly brought out... Read more... |
Classical ballet and recorders?Tuesday, 11 May 2010
The recorder is indelibly associated with school and dreaded first music classes, but the association will be on a considerably higher plane on 21 June when the world recorder star Michala Petri combines with the Royal Ballet School for a one-off... Read more... |
Organ loner flouts conventionMonday, 10 May 2010Performing on the organ is, if you will, a lofty pursuit. Its repertoire calls for devotional focus. And then there’s this bloke.Cameron Carpenter (pictured), who is not yet 30, is unlike other organists. He designs his own clothes, for example,... Read more... |
80,000 Proms tickets sold on first day of booking...Sunday, 09 May 2010...So who says classical music is dead, apart from that critic on the grisly Late Review a couple of years ago (re Birtwistle's The Minotaur - to be precise, "If you think classical music is dead, go to Covent Garden and see the corpse")? Of course... Read more... |
The real reason Enron flopped on Broadway?Thursday, 06 May 2010This week, after a performance of Enron at the Noel Coward Theatre, I chaired a Q&A session with director Rupert Goold, writer Lucy Prebble, actor Sam West and most of the rest of the cast. What no one in the room knew then, though Goold and... Read more... |
2010 Tony Awards: La Cage leads the packTuesday, 04 May 2010
Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman didn't make the cut; Denzel Washington and Broadway neophyte Douglas Hodge did. And so the race is on for the 2010 Tony Awards, heralding the best of the 39 shows that opened on Broadway across the past season. As... Read more... |
Paintings, crushed canvases, sound art and sci-fi - an eclectic year for Turner Prize shortlistTuesday, 04 May 2010
Last year critics were pleasantly surprised that the Turner Prize shortlist included works that could actually be admired for traditional notions of beauty. This year they might be surprised at its sheer variety. The four nominees not only include a... Read more... |
Turner Prize winner takes conceptual art to new heightsSunday, 02 May 2010
Lift music is given a conceptual twist by former Turner Prize-winning artist Martin Creed this week. As part of the Southbank’s Chorus! festival, Creed has recreated his Work No. 409 especially for the Royal Festival Hall’s glass lift: as visitors... Read more... |
Ballet biography wins top theatre book prizeWednesday, 28 April 2010The Society for Theatre Research’s book of the year award has been won by ballet critic Jann Parry for Different Drummer, her biography of the Royal Ballet choreographer Kenneth MacMillan. The book was chosen this morning in a tight finish at the... Read more... |
Bombay's first international gay film festival triumphsTuesday, 27 April 2010Everything happens so quickly in India. It seems like only yesterday that homosexuality was legalised; and now Bombay has just hosted the first Kashish-Mumbai International Queer Film Festival. As one of its very literary organisers pointed out,... Read more... |
Marc Quinn moves White Cube into the greenFriday, 23 April 2010
Thanks to the wonders of council applications, theartsdesk can bring you an exclusive preview of Marc Quinn's new sculptures to be placed outside the White Cube gallery on the grass of Hoxton Square.Quinn will be putting two colossal orchids (over... Read more... |
