France
Daphnis et Chloé, Tenebrae, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - lighting up Ravel’s ‘choreographic symphony’Thursday, 11 April 2024
Antonio Pappano fervently believes that talking about music is a vital part of his communicative art, and nobody does it better. Given that the London Symphony Orchestra's enterprising Half Six Fix format is scheduled for an hour each time, and that... Read more... |
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire review - a bit of a monster let-downSaturday, 30 March 2024
The latest blockbuster of 2024 is this disappointing fifth entry in the so-called MonsterVerse franchise, owned by Legendary Pictures. About half of the film contain actors, while half of it is computer-generated – the likely brief future of cinema... Read more... |
The Origin of Evil review - Laure Calamy stars in gripping French psychodramaThursday, 28 March 2024
A young woman (Laure Calamy; Call my Agent!; Full Time; Her Way) is trying to pluck up the courage to call her father, who she’s tracked down and has never met. Her voice trembles, she can barely speak, she has to hang up. But finally she manages it... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Strasbourg: crossing the frontiersWednesday, 13 March 2024
A single pair of swans glided serenely under the bridges of the river Ill as I walked to the premiere of the Opéra National du Rhin’s new production of Lohengrin in Strasbourg on Sunday.It felt like an auspicious omen for Michael Spyres’s first full... Read more... |
Album: Laetitia Sadier - Rooting for LoveWednesday, 21 February 2024
It must be kind of unreal living in the Stereolab universe.A band of geeky introverts, beloved of the type of hairclip-and-satchel indie ultras a friend of mine used to call “the Scooby Gang” for their tendency to resemble Shaggy and Velma, over the... Read more... |
Lugansky, Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, Letonja, Cadogan Hall review - Russian soul, French flairWednesday, 14 February 2024
To judge by the post-interval empty seats near me, some of the Cadogan Hall audience had turned up last night solely to hear Nikolai Lugansky play Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto. Well, the more fool them. For sure they would have enjoyed their... Read more... |
The Taste of Things review - a gentle love letter to haute cuisineWednesday, 14 February 2024
Awarded the best director prize at Cannes last year, Anh Hung Tran has served up cinema’s latest hymn to gastronomy, The Taste of Things. Tasting (and smelling) what’s on the screen is obviously impossible, but even so Tran provides as total a... Read more... |
Tatty Macleod, Soho Theatre review - cross-Channel relationsThursday, 11 January 2024
Tatty Macleod, whose debut show is about the differences between the French and the English, has a confession to make: she's not French. She not even half English/half French, despite having lived her life between the two countries. But she's... Read more... |
Blood Coast, Netflix review - mayhem in MarseilleSaturday, 16 December 2023
The original title of this French crime drama was Pax Massilia, a reference to the classical roots of its setting in what is now known as Marseille. Dating back to the 6th Century BC, it’s supposedly the oldest city in France. An atmospheric mix of... Read more... |
Trans Musicales Festival 2023 review - a smorgasbord of global soundsTuesday, 12 December 2023
FRIDAYRennes Airport Parc Expo is about three miles west of the city. It’s vast, consisting of 110,000 metres of cavernous warehouse-like hangars, and has hosted everything from Holiday on Ice to France’s hugest annual agricultural conference. Every... Read more... |
Natalie Dessay, Philippe Cassard, Milton Court review - flashes of magicThursday, 07 December 2023
It could have been a winner: a charismatic star soprano of great emotional and interpretative intelligence, a top pianist given a little space to shine on his own, a programme that looked good on paper, of distinguished German/Austro-German women... Read more... |
Louise Alder & Friends, Wigmore Hall review - magic carpet rides with soprano, strings and woodwindMonday, 27 November 2023
Sometimes all the stars align in musical performance. There’s no soprano more alive to the expression of musical joy and rapture than Louise Alder, no composer more levitational in his strange later adventures than Fauré, no instrumentalists strings... Read more... |
