Austria
Prom 74: Sonnleitner, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, MaazelSaturday, 07 September 2013
Tradition used to decree that the last Friday Prom would be devoted to worshipping Beethoven’s Choral Symphony. Not so today. Anything deemed serious and big occupies the slot, and if Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony isn’t serious and big, what do you... Read more... |
Museum HoursFriday, 06 September 2013
How we look at and value art, the stuff we accumulate around us, and our daily surroundings; how we look at and communicate with each other (or avoid doing so in the digital age); and if we do or don't see: these are some of the themes explored in... Read more... |
Prom 73: Imogen Cooper, Paul LewisFriday, 06 September 2013
It’s not because I lament the annual end of a love-hate relationship with the Albert Hall that the last few days of Proms feel rather melancholy. A bittersweetness lies rather in the drawing-in of evenings, however hot it is, so late night Schubert... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Grafenegg: Fairytale festivalSunday, 25 August 2013
It may not be the land of milk and honey, but as the home of wine and apricots Lower Austria’s Wachau might just be even better. Bookended by the towns of Melk and Krems, this stretch of the Danube valley is absurdly picturesque, strewing the banks... Read more... |
KumaFriday, 16 August 2013
It’s the women who keep things together in Umut Dağ’s debut feature Kuma, and you can see the weight of the burden that matriarch Fatma (Nihal G Koldas) has been carrying etched on her face. Fatma’s latest endeavour to preserve balance in her Vienna... Read more... |
Prom 35: Mahler's 'Resurrection' Symphony, Jansons/Prom 36: Bach Oratorios, GardinerSaturday, 10 August 2013
Mahler, who like most of us thought Bach was “the greatest of them all” and studied in depth the edition of his complete works, would have been delighted by last night’s extravaganza – a true celebration of what makes the Proms the much quoted “... Read more... |
The Sound of Music, Regent's Park Open Air TheatreTuesday, 06 August 2013
Over in Southwark you can currently find Rodgers and Hammerstein exploring the seamier side of life among the prostitutes and drop-outs of Pipe Dream, but in the woody amphitheatre of the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre it’s all raindrops on roses... Read more... |
Paradise: HopeTuesday, 30 July 2013
Ulrich Seidl claims there’s a simple reason he goes easier on young teenager Melanie’s stumble through 21st-century sexual desire and disaster than he did with her mum and aunt in Paradise: Love and Paradise: Faith. Going further with her requited... Read more... |
Paradise: FaithFriday, 05 July 2013
What goes on in some homes would scare the sturdiest horse. Take Anna (Maria Hofstatter), whose daily routine might strike some serial killers as pathological. Semi-naked self-flagellation and circuiting the house on bleeding knees is the least of... Read more... |
PARADISE: LoveWednesday, 12 June 2013
The likelihood of leaving a screening of PARADISE: Love without feeling either queasy or at least a little off balance is low. This realist-styled portrayal of middle-aged Teresa’s excursion to Kenya to seek intimacy and, inevitably, sex is awkward... Read more... |
Mayerling, The Royal Ballet/ Le Jeune Homme et La Mort, English National BalletSunday, 21 April 2013
The acting tradition is refined in British ballet to a height not matched anywhere else in the world - distilled in Frederick Ashton’s ballets, expanded in Kenneth MacMillan’s. This repertoire has produced a stream of exceptional dance actors over... Read more... |
Vienna Philharmonic, Tilson Thomas, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 10 April 2013
When Schoenberg made his steroidal orchestration of Brahms’s G minor Piano Quartet he saw and heard what many don’t - that Brahms was more of a radical than the music world was ready to acknowledge, that he was not the conservative in the shadow of... Read more... |
