Italy
Crowe, The English Concert, Bicket, Milton Court review - Mozartian prima-donna perfectionThursday, 26 October 2017
Singing students from the Guildhall School should have been issued with a three-line whip to fill the inexplicably half-empty Milton Court concert hall for last night's charmer. After all, every musician, and not just sopranos, should know that this... Read more... |
The Tallis Scholars, Phillips, Cadogan Hall review - intimacy in late Renaissance musicSaturday, 23 September 2017
Peter Phillips and the Tallis Scholars have nothing to prove when it comes to Renaissance choral music – few ensembles can match them for clarity, balance and purity of tone. They are perfect guides, then, for this tour of the late Italian... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Legend of the Holy DrinkerWednesday, 20 September 2017
A decade after his masterpiece, The Tree of Wooden Clogs, won the 1978 Palme d’Or at Cannes, Italian director Ermanno Olmi took Venice’s 1988 Golden Lion for The Legend of the Holy Drinker (La leggenda del santo bevitore). Festival victories aside,... Read more... |
La Bohème, Royal Opera review - spectacle and sentiment not yet in focusTuesday, 12 September 2017
“I’m not in the mood” – “non sono in vena” – sings aspiring poet Rodolfo as he settles down to write a lead article. Was it me, or had the mood not settled by the premiere of the Royal Opera’s first new production of Puccini's structurally perfect... Read more... |
Prom 54 review: Kavakos, Filarmonica della Scala, Chailly - cool Milanesi mute Roman exuberanceSaturday, 26 August 2017
Last night was one of those rare occasions when I'd rather have heard Respighi's gaudy-brilliant Roman Festivals than Brahms's Violin Concerto. It wasn't just that concerts like Charles Dutoit's 2014 Prom had shown us that the Italian's Roman... Read more... |
Edinburgh Festival 2017 review: Verdi's Macbeth - exhilarating and overwhelmingMonday, 21 August 2017
Skeletal horses; piles of newborn babies smothered in a bloody sheet; a whole garden centre of prickly pears. There’s no denying that Italian director Emma Dante’s new production of Verdi’s Macbeth, which Turin’s Teatro Regio brings to the Edinburgh... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Tree of Wooden ClogsTuesday, 08 August 2017
Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1978, Ermanno Olmi’s The Tree of Wooden Clogs (L’albero deli zoccoli) is a glorious fresco that reveals, over the course of an unhurried three hours and with a pronounced documentary element that virtually... Read more... |
El-Khoury, Spyres, Hallé, Rizzi, Cadogan Hall review - bel canto lives againSaturday, 15 July 2017
Unless you're an undiscriminating fan of bel canto, the lesser Italian and French operas of the 1830s and '40s - that's to say, not Verdi's Nabucco and Macbeth or Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini - need to be approached with caution. Once you've lowered... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Bird With the Crystal PlumageTuesday, 20 June 2017
A well-known internet sales site currently offers seven previous home cinema editions of The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. Some are DVD or Blu-ray only, others are on both formats – increasing the amount of packages on offer. Only a brave company... Read more... |
Michelangelo: Love and Death review - how to diminish a colossusTuesday, 13 June 2017
As perhaps the greatest artist there has ever been – and as one of the most fascinating and complex personalities of his era – Michelangelo should be a thrilling subject for serious as well as dramatic cinematic documentary treatment. Michelangelo... Read more... |
La Strada, The Other Palace review - Fellini's tragicomedy becomes a noisy rompThursday, 01 June 2017
Hitting the essence of a Fellini masterpiece in a different medium is no easy task. Try and reproduce his elusive brand of poetic melancholy and you'll fail; best to transfer the characters to a different medium, as the musical Sweet Charity did in... Read more... |
Giacomo Balla: Designing the Future, Estorick CollectionFriday, 07 April 2017
The wonderful Estorick collection, tucked away in Highbury Fields in London, is internationally renowned for its collection of modern Italian art, with a core of major Futurist works. Its new temporary exhibition focuses on one of these Futurist... Read more... |
