Italy
Bauci e Filemone/Orfeo, Classical Opera, QEH review - a star Orpheus is bornSaturday, 01 June 2019
All happy 18th century couples are alike, it seems, and that makes for a certain placidity in Gluck's pastoral Bauci e Filomene for the (unhappy) wedding of Ferdinand, Duke of Parma and Maria Amalia, Archduchess of Austria. All unhappy couples are... Read more... |
58th Venice Biennale review - confrontational, controversial, principledTuesday, 14 May 2019
There’s a barely disguised sense of threat running through the 2019 Venice Biennale. Of the 79 participating artists and groups, all are living and there’s a sharp sense that the purpose of the exhibition is to diagnose the ills afflicting the... Read more... |
First Person: Robert Hollingworth on I Fagiolini's 'Leonardo - Shaping the Invisible'Friday, 26 April 2019
Leonardo da Vinci died 500 years ago on 2 May this year. We all know he was a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, pioneer of flight and anatomist – yet according to Vasari, Leonardo’s first job outside Florence was as a result of his musical... Read more... |
Who’s Afraid of Drawing? Works on Paper from the Ramo Collection, Estorick Collection review - surprising and rewardingThursday, 25 April 2019
Paper is traditionally the medium though which artists think. Stray thoughts and experiments can be quickly tried out, pushed further or jettisoned. There are no penalties for starting something which goes wrong or transforms into something else... Read more... |
Loro review – hedonism must have an endFriday, 19 April 2019
"Them" - the "loro" of the title (with a further play on “l’oro”, gold) - denotes the mostly sleazy opportunists willing to use and be used by "him" ("lui"), "Presidente" Silvio Berlusconi in his septuagenarian bid for an extended sexual and... Read more... |
Happy as Lazzaro review - magical realism from ItalyFriday, 05 April 2019
Italy has a romance with rural grit and innocence and – perhaps not surprising in a country where the links between village and city are still very strong: Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy as Lazzaro (Lazzaro Felice) isn’t in any way derivative, but... Read more... |
Pitzhanger Manor review - letting the light back inTuesday, 02 April 2019
When in 1800 the architect Sir John Soane bought Pitzhanger Manor for £4,500, he did so under the spell of optimism, energy and hope. The son of a bricklayer, Soane had – through a combination of talent, hard work and luck – risen through... Read more... |
Bernheim, Finley, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - top Italians in second gearTuesday, 05 March 2019
Would Verdi and Puccini have composed more non-operatic music, had they thrived in a musical culture different to Italy's? Hard to say. What we do know is that they both became absolute masters of orchestration – Puccini rather quicker than Verdi,... Read more... |
Fausto Melotti: Counterpoint, Estorick Collection review - harmonious thingsSaturday, 26 January 2019
For an artist whose cerebral and frequently playful works reference physics, myth and music, Fausto Melotti’s artistic education was appropriately heterogeneous.The foundations were laid early on at the Elisabettina School in his hometown of... Read more... |
My Brilliant Friend, Sky Atlantic review - rich revelations of childhoodTuesday, 20 November 2018
This opening episode of My Brilliant Friend was a stunning symphony in grey. For any viewers concerned that HBO’s long-awaited Elena Ferrante adaptation might be tempted to sweeten the visual experience of the writer’s impoverished 1950s Naples... Read more... |
Federico Colli, Wigmore Hall review – poised on the edge of the possibleFriday, 02 November 2018
The Italian pianist Federico Colli, 30, best known so far as winner of the 2012 Leeds International Piano Competition, last night arrived for his Wigmore Hall debut sporting an emerald-green cravat, but the sonic colours he magicked out of the piano... Read more... |
Dogman review - Matteo Garrone takes on the mafia againFriday, 19 October 2018
There aren’t many movies that cater to audiences with a passion for canine grooming, the mafia and dismal seaside resorts but Dogman more than satisfies all those cravings. Ten years after Matteo Garrone won Cannes with the searingly brutal Gomorrah... Read more... |
