19th century
Shared Experience: sharing the workTuesday, 05 July 2011
Shared Experience is certainly living up to its name; in a radical departure from normal theatre conventions, the company is currently sharing part of its rehearsal process with audiences as it develops Helen Edmundson’s latest work, Mary Shelley,... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Dvořák, Rózsa, XenakisSaturday, 02 July 2011
An unreleased live recording from a much missed conductor provides heartwarming food for the soul, while another podium giant brings musicality to uncompromising Modernism, aided by a phenomenal pianist. Meanwhile, a Hungarian exile in Hollywood... Read more... |
Toulouse-Lautrec and Jane Avril: Beyond the Moulin Rouge, Courtauld GalleryThursday, 23 June 2011
As one of the stars of the Moulin Rouge, she was variously known by the nicknames "La Mélinite", "Jane la Folle", and "L’Etrange". The first was after a brand of explosive, the other two attesting to a little craziness. Jane Avril’s eccentric dance... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Dvořák, StraussSaturday, 18 June 2011
This week we’ve a brilliant, budget-priced box of Beethoven symphonies played on authentic instruments. It’ll remind you of how much fun there is to be had with this most iconic of composers. A historical recording of a famous cellist reappears, but... Read more... |
Tristan und Isolde, Opéra de LyonMonday, 13 June 2011
Travelling by Eurostar, or plane, to the continent and buying a ticket, all for less than the cost of a Covent Garden stalls seat, might entice if you wanted to see a certain opera, singer or conductor. But to go so far for the look of a staging?... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Mahler, Schubert, StravinskyFriday, 10 June 2011
A 20th-century Austrian symphony receives a memorable first recording, coupled with a witty, rarely played slice of Schubert. Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony is heard in a powerful reading recorded in the Royal Festival Hall. And we’ve an... Read more... |
Government Inspector, Young VicFriday, 10 June 2011
It's not often in classic comedy that you cry with laughter at the opening gags, and even rarer that the final scene of perfectly orchestrated ensemble acting actually crowns the work. More than two decades on from his groundbreaking Old Vic... Read more... |
Hard Times, Murrays' Mills, ManchesterThursday, 09 June 2011
Dickens wasn’t wrong – hard times they were. Around 1300 men, women and children worked at the Murrays’ Mills complex in the Ancoats area of Manchester in its mid-19th-century heyday (if you can call it that). Arrive a minute later than 7am and... Read more... |
Don Pasquale, Opera Holland ParkWednesday, 08 June 2011
Nothing says summer opera quite like the skittish melodies and Neapolitan oom-pah-pah of a Donizetti overture. It doesn’t get much cheekier or more playful than this, the kind of music that makes you long for a pea shooter to pelt opera-goers with a... Read more... |
Macbeth, Royal OperaTuesday, 24 May 2011
The staging smacks of Covent Garden's familiar Verdi-by-numbers - surprising since it's the often inventive Phyllida Lloyd's concept, revived by Harry Fehr, but it might as well be the inert pageantry of Elijah Moshinsky - while the necessary... Read more... |
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Glyndebourne Festival OperaSunday, 22 May 2011
So the world didn't end yesterday as predicted, and Wagner's divine comedy about the meaning of art has weathered the ironic apocalypse following Hitler’s misappropriation. Bayreuth reels, but we Brits are lucky to have two stagings in under a year... Read more... |
The School for Scandal, Barbican TheatreSaturday, 21 May 2011
"There’s no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature,” preaches the Gospel according to Richard Brinsley Sheridan. What the playwright omits to mention, however, is that it is possible to be ill-natured without in fact being terribly... Read more... |
