Italy
Madrigals and Scarlatti, Lufthansa Baroque FestivalMonday, 17 May 2010
"Is it music or just a bit weird?" Robert Hollingworth, director of Baroque vocal specialists I Fagiolini, was posing the question of Gesualdo, the infamous oddball composer of the late 16th century - a sort of musical Caravaggio - whose capricious... Read more... |
Vincere Special 1: Fascism is Dead, Long Live Il DuceThursday, 13 May 2010
Applauded by the audiences at Cannes last year, where it was the only Italian film in the competition, and nominated for a Palme d’Or, awarded four prizes at the Chicago International Film Festival, and favourably received at home, Marco... Read more... |
Vincere Special 2: Interview with Filippo TimiThursday, 13 May 2010
Filippo Timi plays the young Mussolini of Marco Bellocchio's Vincere as a glowering, virile force of nature. Watching this and his other recent films, it was hard not to think of the Brando of the early 1950s. Timi, too, combines bullish masculine... Read more... |
One Night in TurinWednesday, 05 May 2010
Why make a documentary about Italia 90? It’s just another tournament that England didn’t win, isn't it? If the World Cup hosted by Italy in 1990 deserves exhumation, it’s for its trickle-down impact on football as we live and breathe it now. Hence... Read more... |
theartsdesk in the Vatican: In an Audience with the PopeSunday, 02 May 2010
At the Vatican, recently, the Pope attended a concert in his honour in the Sala Clementina. This is the great double-height room which stands at the entrance to the private papal apartments; it is where Pope John Paul II’s body lay in state almost... Read more... |
Women Beware Women, National TheatreTuesday, 27 April 2010
The recent fuss about British culture being anti-Catholic just because some civil servant wrote a spoof memo satirising the Pope’s upcoming visit may have been overblown, but it is certainly true that, in the past, Italy was a byword for rank... Read more... |
Greatest Cities of the World, ITV1Friday, 23 April 2010
You always know where you are with Griff. You may be up a mountain or on a river or visiting any of the various topographical options the various TV companies deem it essential to send him. You may be doing up his house with him in Wales, where he... Read more... |
I Am LoveThursday, 08 April 2010
Somehow the title sounds more sonorous in Italian. Io Sono l'Amore is a big, fat, full-blown melodrama, a film with the button marked "passione" forced up to 11. It looks exquisite, is a glittering showcase for Tilda Swinton as the restless Russian... Read more... |
Angela de la Cruz/ Anna Maria Maiolino, Camden Arts CentreFriday, 02 April 2010
Acts of wanton destruction appear to have taken place at Camden Arts Centre, as canvases lie crushed, ripped, crumpled and broken. Monochrome and minimalist works have had their stretchers, their very backbones, ripped and cracked in two, and their... Read more... |
Philharmonia Orchestra, Muti, Royal Festival HallTuesday, 30 March 2010
If all orchestras inspire a sense of loyalty to some degree, then the Philharmonia perhaps does it better than most. Mackerras is still performing with them, 54 years after he first conducted the orchestra; so is Maazel, who has clocked up 41 years... Read more... |
The Berlusconi Show, BBC TwoWednesday, 17 March 2010
Imagine if Rory Bremner had been banned from British television for the past 20 years, and Gordon Brown had put pressure on the BBC to get rid of Question Time because it had been critical of him. In the Italy of Silvio Berlusconi these things... Read more... |
Maurizio Pollini, Royal Festival HallMonday, 01 March 2010
Was it Chopin’s birthday or wasn’t it? To be honest, no one at last night’s Royal Festival Hall concert probably gave a damn, so wrapped up were they in Maurizio Pollini’s playing. And what playing it was too. The man just sits down and gets on with... Read more... |
