France
Fidelio, Opéra de Lyon, Festival Theatre, EdinburghTuesday, 13 August 2013
When first seen at Serge Dorny’s Opéra de Lyon in March-April this year, American Gary Hill’s unusual vision of Beethoven’s Fidelio could be recognised immediately as concept opera: drama where a director’s “idea” largely takes over the story. Hill... Read more... |
Looking For HortenseThursday, 08 August 2013
Don't spend too much time looking for Kristin Scott Thomas in writer-director Pascal Bonitzer's Looking For Hortense (aka Cherchez Hortense). In keeping with the fleeting presence afforded the Hortense of the title, the divine Scott Thomas... Read more... |
The Returned, Series Finale, Channel 4Monday, 29 July 2013
It could so easily have been The Walking Dead, where the living endlessly battle an ever-increasing tide of returnees from the beyond. The resurrected in the contemplative Returned weren’t zombies, but actual living people with a desire to pick up... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Shadow Morton, Motorama, Rob Jo Star Band, Souad MassiSunday, 14 July 2013
Various Artists: Sophisticated Boom Boom!! – The Shadow Morton StoryWithout Shadow Morton, Amy Winehouse could not have made Back to Black. The songs the enigmatic sonic wizard wrote and produced for The Shangri-Las in the mid Sixties were... Read more... |
Fortunio, Grange Park OperaThursday, 11 July 2013
André Messager is one of those fringe composers whose music you feel you know something about until you try to think of a specific piece. His ballet Les deux pigeons is still sometimes revived. But to students of French music, he’s actually best... Read more... |
Hippolyte et Aricie, Glyndebourne Festival OperaSunday, 30 June 2013
Jean-Philippe Rameau wrote Hippolyte et Aricie in 1733 at the age of 50. It was his first opera and his greatest. In its five acts, its visits to the woods of Diana, the groves of Venus, the fires of Pluto and the domestic meltdown in the house... Read more... |
Precision: The Measure of All Things, BBC FourTuesday, 11 June 2013
Given the breadth of Marcus du Sautoy’s cultural scholarship, it was a small surprise that British poet Andrew Marvell wasn't name-checked at the start of the presenter’s new three-parter Precision: The Measure of All Things. “Had we but world... Read more... |
The Returned, Channel 4Monday, 10 June 2013
"Maybe everything that dies someday comes back," Bruce Springsteen posited in "Atlantic City". The residents of the French Alpine village at the centre of The Returned may conclude that he had a point. The Returned (Les Revenants in the... Read more... |
'The Returned' comes to Channel 4Friday, 07 June 2013
Read theartsdesk's review of episode 1 of The ReturnedThe Returned, which hits our screens on Sunday night, is the first foreign language drama to appear on Channel 4 in 20 years. Under its original title Les Revenants, it was a ratings-topping hit... Read more... |
PopulaireThursday, 30 May 2013
Writer-director Régis Roinsard's feature debut is a perky French rom-com which brings together the talented, easy-on-the-eye trio of Déborah François, Romain Duris and Bérénice Bejo. Set in the late 50s it contains oodles of delicious period detail... Read more... |
London Symphony Orchestra, Gergiev, Trafalgar SquareTuesday, 28 May 2013
Down Whitehall, the English Defence League had been making ripples, and at 7.40pm some of its packs were still roaring round Trafalgar Square. At that moment, Berlioz’s March to the Scaffold from the Symphonie fantastique drowned them out in one big... Read more... |
Something in the AirWednesday, 22 May 2013
Cinema sometimes seems to have left the Age of Aquarius behind. The filmmakers who came of age in the Sixties have long since said what they needed to, and nowadays the decade’s evanescent aura feels confined to 50th anniversaries of the likes of... Read more... |
