Buzz
Powerless Structures, Fig. 101, Fourth PlinthThursday, 23 February 2012
Superficially it's the very picture of innocence. A boy clings to his wooden steed, one hand clutching the neck, the other flying free. Few Fourth Plinth commissions will be more easily co-opted for official public duty. Hope, youth, the exultation... Read more... |
A swift comeback for Covent Garden's ballet prodigal PoluninWednesday, 22 February 2012
Fascinating news of the errant Royal Ballet star Sergei Polunin, apparently not lost to ballet just yet. Following his sudden walkout from the world-famous company where he was trained and nurtured as the most promising young man for decades, he is... Read more... |
Sport and classical music: they should hang out moreWednesday, 22 February 2012
Classical music and sport: should they spend more time together? The idea was posited more than 20 years ago that football and opera made for ideal bedfellows, so long as the football was being played in Italy and the operatic aria was Nessun Dorma... Read more... |
The BRIT Awards: The Brand leading the BlandWednesday, 22 February 2012
It's awards season for the music industry, and no amount of complaining, ignoring or pointedly watching BBC Four in protest is going to stop the BRIT Awards from ordering in a few thousand servings of homemade tomato chutney and crostini to be laid... Read more... |
Now English National Ballet loses its second head - Eagling to leaveMonday, 20 February 2012
Sudden and disconcerting news from English National Ballet where it's just been announced that artistic director Wayne Eagling is to step down this summer. The company gives no reason for this exceedingly short notice, which leaves them having to... Read more... |
Channel 4 has high hopes for HomelandSunday, 19 February 2012
If you don't fancy any more masters-and-servants dramas on a Sunday evening, you can thank Channel 4 for bringing the excellent Homeland to its Sunday roster. Kicking off tonight, it arrives in the UK basking in Golden Globe glory, having picked up... Read more... |
Dustin Hoffman rides his Luck on Sky AtlanticThursday, 16 February 2012
Further advancing the theory that television is the place for pedigree actors to be seen nowadays, Dustin Hoffman makes his TV debut in HBO's Luck, which kicks off on Saturday 18 February on Sky Atlantic. A complex, multi-stranded saga about horse... Read more... |
Max Von Sydow: Extremely Quiet and Incredibly PersonableWednesday, 15 February 2012
He played chess with Death in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, was crucified as Jesus in George Stevens’s The Greatest Story Ever Told and diced with the devil in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. There’s something magnicent and elemental about the... Read more... |
A new opera about sex traffickingWednesday, 15 February 2012
The oldest profession is at the heart of one of the most popular operas in the canon. But the price put on a woman's sexuality will not be quite so glamorously portrayed in a new opera as it is in La Traviata. Ensemble 10/10, the contemporary music... Read more... |
Artists send Valentine's Love Letter to the EarthTuesday, 14 February 2012A Valentine’s card to the Earth donated by artists might seem a bit schlocky, even if cynicism is not the appropriate emotion on Valentine's Day. This is, however, no woolly-headed stunt, but part of dynamic lawyer Polly Higgins’s serious and - who... Read more... |
Valentine Birthdays on the TubeTuesday, 14 February 2012
What could be more romantic than watching and listening to singers born on Valentine's Day rhapsodising about L.O.V.E.? We have love songs on video from Russia, Japan, Tunisia, America and the Czech Republic. Or if not love exactly, then how about... Read more... |
The Grammys: A Night of Surprises?Monday, 13 February 2012
Well, who could have predicted that? For once the Grammys proved that the US recording industry establishment is up for the challenge of reflecting the sense of a world in social and cultural flux by throwing surprise after surprise, bombshell after... Read more... |
