Tchaikovsky
Gerstein, BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, Bychkov, BarbicanSaturday, 29 October 2016
What a relief to find Semyon Bychkov back on romantic terra firma after his slow-motion Mozart at the Royal Opera (performances speeded up somewhat, I'm told, after a sticky first night). On his own, dark-earth terms, there's no-one to touch him for... Read more... |
Anastasia, Royal BalletThursday, 27 October 2016
The reception of Kenneth MacMillan's ballet Anastasia has some similarities with that accorded the Berlin asylum patient who some believed to be the lost Romanov Grand Duchess. For supporters who wanted to believe in the fairytale, Anna Anderson's... Read more... |
The Sleeping Beauty, Australian Ballet, cinema broadcastThursday, 06 October 2016
Australian Ballet's cinema broadcast on Tuesday night appears to have been a little under-publicised – at least in my local multiplex, which was deafeningly empty with just five spectators. I suspect a combination of circumstances to be at work: the... Read more... |
Prom 55: Hannigan, CBSO, Gražinytė-TylaSunday, 28 August 2016
If ever there was a Prom to put London’s classical crowd in their place, to remind us (as those outside the capital so frequently and justifiably do) that the city isn’t the be-all and end-all of concert-going, then this was it. It featured three... Read more... |
Prom 29: NYO, Gardner/Prom 30: Kolesnikov, NYOS, VolkovMonday, 08 August 2016
If the BBC were to plan a Proms season exclusively devoted to youth orchestras and ensembles, many of us would be delighted. Standards are now at professional level right across the board. 20 years ago, the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland... Read more... |
Prom 27: Kuusisto, BBCSSO, DausgaardSaturday, 06 August 2016
Concert halls, as Gregg Wallace might observe if he ever went to one, don’t come much bigger than the Royal Albert Hall, nor violin concertos than the Tchaikovsky. Faced with this awesome combination, the temptation for a soloist is to play up to... Read more... |
Swan Lake, Bolshoi Ballet, Royal Opera HouseSaturday, 30 July 2016
"If you know anything about dance," I was told last night by an aged balletomane at the Royal Opera House, "you know that Russian ballet companies are the best." If this is true then the Bolshoi Ballet, biggest of the Russian companies, in Swan Lake... Read more... |
Prom 15: Chen, BBCSO, BBCSC, DavisWednesday, 27 July 2016
Programming a concert is a tricky business. Programming an entire Proms season almost unthinkably difficult. But even allowing for the odd evening of leftovers, those artists, anniversaries and concertos that just can’t be fitted in anywhere else,... Read more... |
Strictly goes to the PromsFriday, 22 July 2016
The glitterball has landed. After loaning out Proms queen Katie Derham to Strictly Come Dancing last series, where she hauled comedy pro Anton Du Beke all the way to the final, the Beeb’s Saturday-night juggernaut returned the favour by... Read more... |
First Night of the Proms, BBCSO, Oramo, Gabetta, BorodinaSaturday, 16 July 2016
The first notes of the first night of the Proms weren’t the ones expected. Instead of either “God Save the Queen” or simply the start of the Tchaikovsky, the “Marseillaise” rang out into the Royal Albert Hall, the Tricouleur projected in coloured... Read more... |
Swan Lake, Australian Ballet, London ColiseumThursday, 14 July 2016
Graeme Murphy's 2002 Swan Lake for Australian Ballet stitches together plot elements from Swan Lake, Giselle and Lucia di Lammermoor, among other things. No bad thing, that; such mash-ups can work well (see Moulin Rouge), and Matthew Bourne proved... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Istanbul Music Festival: classics alla TurcaSunday, 12 June 2016
Flashback to 1981, when the Bolshoy Ballet danced Swan Lake Act Two to a tinny Melodiya recording in Istanbul's Open-Air Theatre (seats were cheap for Interrailing students). Turkey was friends with the Soviet Union then. It hadn't been in the 1950s... Read more... |
