London Coliseum
Eugene Onegin, English National OperaSunday, 13 November 2011
What’s not to love about Tchaikovsky’s candid, lyric scenes drawn from Pushkin’s masterly verse novel? ENO’s advance publicity summed it up neatly by promising “lost love, tragedy, regret”. We’ve most of us been there. That does mean that... Read more... |
Castor and Pollux, English National OperaTuesday, 25 October 2011
The English National Opera were taking quite a gamble with last night's Rameau premiere. The daunting basics? A 250-year-old French opera that hasn't yet been properly adopted by its homeland, let alone by Britain; a mildly autistic mythological... Read more... |
The Marriage of Figaro, English National OperaThursday, 06 October 2011
Fiona Shaw's new production of The Marriage of Figaro for the ENO focuses on the theme of entrapment. Her first victim? A noisy bee. Don Basilio finds himself so harassed by its buzzing, he confines it to the body of a harpsichord. Magically, a few... Read more... |
The Passenger, English National OperaTuesday, 20 September 2011
No two creative artists have a stronger right to make a valid statement about Auschwitz than a Polish-born composer who escaped his family's fate by fleeing to Russia, only to fall into another anti-Semitic trap, and a Polish writer whose clear-eyed... Read more... |
The Elixir of Love, English National OperaThursday, 15 September 2011
“An elixir with a kick, sir, one that really packs a punch”, sings Adina in Jonathan Miller’s Midwestern The Elixir of Love, and she couldn’t be more right. A night spent among the floral prints, perky ponytails and pastel wipe-down surfaces of this... Read more... |
Carlos Acosta, Premieres Plus, London ColiseumWednesday, 27 July 2011
For most dancers the first base is to get principal roles. For a star like Carlos Acosta, second base becomes urgent: to find the career path beyond classical ballet. Like Sylvie Guillem he seeks out a new contemporary dance path to fulfil, being... Read more... |
English National Ballet, Roland Petit Triple Bill, London ColiseumFriday, 22 July 2011
An obsession with sex and death underlies many of the immortal works of 19th-century classical ballet. Giselle is seduced, La Sylphide does the seducing, the Sleeping Beauty is awakened by sex, the Swan Queen is an apparition of death to Prince... Read more... |
Ashton's Romeo and Juliet, London ColiseumWednesday, 13 July 2011
Like planets crossing in the skies, light years apart, but by some ocular illusion coinciding, this conjunction of the two most thrilling young Bolshoi stars in the world and Frederick Ashton’s rarely staged Romeo and Juliet really must be seen.... Read more... |
Interview Special: Bolshoi Dancers Natalia Osipova & Ivan VasilievSunday, 10 July 2011
“What I love about her is her emotion, her true emotion. She’s a ball of energy and emotion all together, quite an amazing thing. From the first time I saw her, I thought I want her to be my girlfriend.” Ivan Vasiliev, the young Bolshoi Ballet... Read more... |
Master of French Ballet Chic Roland Petit DiesSunday, 10 July 2011
Roland Petit died this morning aged 87, a world choreographer of chic and erotic theatricality who blew away the French classical ideal in a roar of post-war sexual liberation. He created an all-male corps of swans for Swan Lake long before Matthew... Read more... |
Two Boys, English National OperaSaturday, 25 June 2011
Nico Muhly had one humble aim for his first opera. He wanted to create an episode of Prime Suspect, he told me last week. "A grand opera that functions as a good night's entertainment." There's no doubt he's achieved that. Two Boys, receiving its... Read more... |
Dream againFriday, 24 June 2011
It's not often that we in the critical world revisit a production towards the end of a run to see how it's settled. I had two reasons for wanting to return to Christopher Alden's English National Opera production of Britten's A Midsummer Night's... Read more... |
