Features & Interviews
First Person: Hannah Khalil on museum as metaphor in her new play for the RSC
Tuesday, 22 October 2019
It all started in 2009 in the National Portrait Gallery. I’d had a meeting nearby so popped in to get a cuppa and stare at the beautiful rooftop view of London from their top-floor café, but a picture caught my eye. It was part of an exhibition of Victorian Women Explorers, a photograph of a woman with a rather severe face. The label said something like: "Gertrude Bell – Mountaineer, Explorer, Diplomat and Spy.
‘We must not allow boorish, opportunistic autocrats to hijack music’: Gabriela Montero on life and art
Monday, 21 October 2019
For as long as I can remember, there has been a continuous loop of original music playing in my mind. My father used to joke about my “tuyuyo” – a little bump I have on the back of my head – that it was my personal repository for music. My husband, less versed in Venezuelan colloquialisms, simply refers to it as “the iPod”.
The deathless Alicia Alonso, in person
Friday, 18 October 2019
The magnificent, controversial Cuban ballerina Alicia Alonso, who asserted that she would live to 200, died yesterday in Havana, aged nearly 99....
theartsdesk at the Tsinandali Festival: young...
Tuesday, 15 October 2019
Two hours' drive from Tbilisi over a beautiful mountain pass, lushly wooded on the descent, the Tsinandali Estate has been central to Georgia's wine-...
Book extract: Insurrecto by Gina Apostol
Friday, 11 October 2019
She has more armed guards than she has luggage. She has a sense of purpose even Magsalin admires. She rides along the coast toward a historic place...
Book extract: Insurrecto by Gina Apostol
Extract II of III - Days of the Dead |
Book extract: Insurrecto by Gina Apostol
Extract I of III - Translations |
'A laboratory for everything': Jasper Parrott on the future of his classical music agency
As Harrison Parrott celebrates 50 years with concerts on Sunday, its main mover reflects |
Jessye Norman, 1945-2019
The great soprano has died at the age of 74, leaving behind a fabulous legacy |
Charles Owen and Katya Apekisheva on the London Piano Festival: 'It's not just playing one concert and going home'
On a meeting of musical friends with a Two-Piano Marathon at its heart |
Simon Halsey on Tippett’s ‘A Child of Our Time’: ‘the biggest lesson was how to feel what he had written’
The CBSO Chorus's director on preparing a masterpiece, and working with the composer |
Al Alvarez: 'If I drop dead this minute, I’ve had a terrific time'
An encounter with the literary daredevil and critic who published Sylvia Plath |
theartsdesk in Hamburg: Reeperbahn Festival 2019 review
Hustle, bustle, Matt Dillon and forehead-slappingly forceful Mancunians in sin city |
'This goes beyond music and drama': tenor Nicky Spence on Martinů's 'The Greek Passion'
On his Christ-playing character in Opera North's new production of a Czech masterpiece |
First Person: Matthew Xia on why his production of 'Amsterdam' feels especially pertinent and vital now
The director sets the scene for his debut production at the helm of Actors Touring Company |
theartsdesk at the Southrepps Music Festival - world-class young musicians return to North Norfolk
Pianist Martin James Bartlett and guitarist Sean Shibe help celebrate a big 10th birthday |
Foragers of the Foreshore - London's mudlarks on show
The director of Totally Thames introduces this year's festival, including an exhibition of mudlarks and their finds |
Power, politics and Peaky Blinders - the Shelby family return for Series 5
Steam-punk gangsters invade the corridors of Westminster |
Making new waves: Royce Vavrek on forging a libretto from Lars von Trier
Missy Mazzoli's collaborator on their new operatic version of 'Breaking the Waves' |
theartsdesk at the Pärnu Music Festival 2019 - super-orchestra, top clarinettists, transcendent strings
Paavo Järvi motivates an ever-growing family of musicians in Estonia's summer capital |
theartsdesk at Itinéraire Baroque 2019 - a musical journey through the Périgord
Instrumental/vocal conversations and collisions celebrate the full breadth of the baroque |
theartsdesk in Dalarna: Rhinegold in a Swedish barn by a lake
Intimate Wagner works a treat with a uniformly world-class cast and a 32-piece orchestra |
10th Odessa International Film Festival review - exquisite gay love stories and visionary new music
Not so far from the war zone, the 'Cannes of the East' keeps the film flag flying |
theartsdesk Q&A: documentary maker Karen Stokkendal Poulsen
The Danish director discusses her film ‘On the Inside of a Military Dictatorship’ |
Ewa Banaszkiewicz and Mateusz Dymek: 'Is our film porny?'
Directors of My Friend the Polish Girl respond to claims they've set the female cause back two decades |
theartsdesk at the Ravenna Festival 2019 - in heaven with Dante's Purgatorio and Estonian rites
A dramatic tour from the tomb of Italy's greatest poet and music among the mosaics |
On making The Left Behind: 'We've plugged into the mains'
The director of Killed By My Debt introduces his new BBC drama about a hate crime |
'A product not only of his era but also of his travels': Ian Page on Mozart's cosmopolitan education
The Mozartists' main man on how an early life moving around Europe shaped a genius |
theartsdesk in Treviso - cultural patronage, Italian style
High-level attention to detail in the Fondazione Benetton's support for the arts |
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