Features & Interviews
Franco Zeffirelli: 'I had this feeling that I was special'
Saturday, 15 June 2019
"I am amazed to be still alive. Two hours of medieval torment.” Franco Zeffirelli - who has died at the age of 96 - had spent the day having a lumbar injection to treat a sciatic nerve. You could hear the bafflement in his heavily accented English.
Roger Wright on Oliver Knussen: ‘his challenge to us all to remain curious lives on’
Friday, 14 June 2019
The composition course founded more than 25 years ago at Snape by composers Oliver Knussen and Colin Matthews is in full swing. The scene is the Britten Studio at Snape Maltings on the Suffolk coast. Like Colin, Olly's connections to Aldeburgh and Snape are deep and long lasting, including his Artistic Directorship of the Festival.
First Person: Matt Henry on fulfilling 'a...
Tuesday, 11 June 2019
When I first read One Night in Miami, I instantly felt a strong connection to the piece and its story. The fact that Sam Cooke,...
Bob Dylan Special - Rolling Thunder Revue, Netflix
Tuesday, 11 June 2019
Tomorrow, Martin Scorsese delivers, via Netflix, two hours and 22 minutes of screen time devoted to Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, following on...
Bob Dylan Special - theartsdesk Q&A: Scarlet...
Tuesday, 11 June 2019
As Martin Scorsese’s new feature film, Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story, hits Netflix and cinemas, and a new 14 CD boxed set enters the...
theartsdesk in Bergen: Gothic shocks and Romantic treats
Genres and periods mix and match in style at Norway's premier arts festival |
theartsdesk in Gothenburg: concert-hall storytelling rivets at the Point Music Festival
Galvanizing Santtu-Matias Rouvali kicks off, and two dozen instrumentalists go barefoot |
First Person: Conductor Maxime Pascal on Stockhausen at the Southbank Centre
The man in control of a cosmic opera tonight on its visionary German composer |
Cannes 2019: Week One - a genre-heavy opening
The 72nd film festival showcases ghouls, the gig economy, and gun-wielding avengers |
First Person: Ellen McDougall on finding the commonality in the American classic 'Our Town'
The director explains what drew her to the season-opener this summer at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park |
First Person: Liam Byrne on bringing Versailles to the City's 'Culture Mile'
The viola da gamba player on pleasures at the Barbican's free Sound Unbound festival |
theartsdesk in Tallinn and Tartu: Estonian Music Days go global
Latest host of the International Society for Contemporary Music still leads the way |
First Person: Sam Lee on singing with endangered nightingales
The folk singer on streaming for Extinction Rebellion and the Absolute Bird series |
First Person: Robert Hollingworth on I Fagiolini's 'Leonardo - Shaping the Invisible'
Images reflected in music 500 years after the ultimate Renaissance man's death |
Obituary: Bibi Andersson 1935-2019
David Thompson pays tribute to one of cinema's most enduring icons |
For Folk's Sake: 'I owe my very existence to Morris dancing'
Richard Macer, who has made documentaries about Vogue and dyslexia, introduces his latest |
In the spirit of the composer as innovator: Samir Savant on the London Handel Festival
The director presents a month of enterprising events |
theartsdesk in Zanzibar - behind the veil
Searching for the real island at this year's Sauti za Busara festival of African Music |
Keith Flint, 1969-2019
The Prodigy lose their punk brother, Keith Flint, aged only 49 |
A Previn treasury
Selected recordings of the great musician, who has died just short of his 90th birthday |
Trevor Nunn: 'I'm amazed by Harley Granville Barker's prescience and extraordinary modernity'
The veteran director introduces the London premiere of the English dramatist's heretofore unknown play, 'Agnes Colander' |
theartsdesk in Tromsø: the celluloid Cold War
The Tromsø Film Festival in Norway has revealed some little-seen spy films from behind the Iron Curtain |
theartsdesk Q&A: Shirley Collins - 'There was no way I could ever sing to be popular'
Ahead of next week’s Roundhouse concert, the voice of traditional English music reveals some unexpected musical likes and much more |
Director Alexandria Bombach: 'I feel like a completely different person'
Director of On Her Shoulders on filming Yazidi campaigner Nadia Murad |
theartsdesk Q&A: Hedvig Mollestad, Norway's bridge between heavy metal and jazz
The genre-busting guitarist talks about new album 'Smells Funny', a rotting eyeball and more |
'Bringing things to life is what opera is all about': Robert Howarth on a 'Magic Flute' with a difference
Opera North's Mozart conductor on taking a careful look at a masterpiece |
Best of 2018: Classical concerts
Abundant megatalent in works great and small |
Best of 2018: Opera
A year more remarkable for high musical values than any wealth of great UK productions |
Global fiction: the pick of 2018
From Iraq to Japan, a baker's dozen of translated novels to widen literary horizons |
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