19th century
Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers, National Gallery review - passions translated into paintSaturday, 14 September 2024
Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers includes many of his best known pictures and, amazingly, it is the first exhibition the National Gallery has devoted to this much loved artist. Focusing mainly on paintings and drawings made in the two years he... Read more... |
Hello, Dolly!, London Palladium review - Imelda Staunton makes every line a deal-brokerFriday, 19 July 2024
Jerry Herman is the king of pep. Way too much of it in the first 20 minutes of the recent revue Jerry’s Girls had me screaming for a breather, but here the opening cavalcade, gorgeous overture included, intoxicates thanks to Dominic Cooke‘s razor-... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Buxton International Festival - power and glory in early VerdiFriday, 12 July 2024
Buxton International Festival offers one thundering success, one uneasy compromise and one surprisingly enjoyable experience, in its three mainstage operas this year.Verdi’s Ernani is the thundering success. For the first time in years, the festival... Read more... |
First Person: Katharina Kastening on directing slimline Bizet in a year rich in 'Carmen' productionsSaturday, 06 July 2024
Peter Brook's reimagining of Bizet's Carmen condenses the scale of the original into a more intimate theatrical experience. The score has been starkly cut, the orchestra reduced, and only four singing roles remain: Carmen, Don José, Escamillo and... Read more... |
Miss Julie, Park Theatre review - Strindberg's kitchen drama still packs a punchThursday, 13 June 2024
You have to tiptoe around the edge of the set just to take your seat in the Park’s studio space for Lidless Theatre’s Miss Julie. There’s a plain wooden table, a few utensils on it, wooden chairs and a small cabinet – not much, but, we’re smack... Read more... |
Being Mr Wickham, Jermyn Street Theatre review - the plausible, charming roué gives his version of events 30 years onTuesday, 11 June 2024
It is a truth universally acknowledged that an actor tends to take a sympathetic view of the character he inhabits, however morally questionable. Adrian Lukis, who played the handsome, roguish militiaman, George Wickham, in Andrew Davies's (still... Read more... |
Marie Curie, Charing Cross Theatre review - like polonium, best left undiscoveredTuesday, 11 June 2024
There are many women whose outstanding science was attributed to men or simply devalued to the point of obscurity, but recent interest in the likes of DNA pioneer Rosalind Franklin and NASA’s Katherine Johnson has given credit where credit is due.... Read more... |
Rosalie review - a bride embraces her differenceMonday, 10 June 2024
Stéphanie Di Giusto, who directed the Belle Époque arts biopic La Danseuse, about the groundbreaking Paris Opera performer Loie Fuller, explores the life of another maverick – albeit a reluctant one – in Rosalie. Whereas La Danseuse embraces... Read more... |
Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - meeting a musical communicatorFriday, 03 May 2024
Kahchun Wong, the Hallé’s principal conductor from the coming autumn season, presided in the Bridgewater Hall for the first time yesterday since the announcement of his appointment.It was in the last of the four “Rush Hour” concerts recently... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Marco Bellocchio - the last maestroSaturday, 27 April 2024
The last of the old maestros is standing tall. Marco Bellocchio was a Marxist firebrand when he made his iconoclastic debut with Fists in the Pocket (1965). Now aged 84, he makes intellectually and emotionally muscular, hit epics about abused... Read more... |
Špaček, BBC Philharmonic, Bihlmaier, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - three flavours of ViennaMonday, 22 April 2024
Billed as a “Viennese Whirl”, this programme showed that there are different kinds of music that may be known to the orchestral canon as coming from Vienna.For a start, there’s the classical tradition of Mozart, Beethoven and those who aimed to be... Read more... |
Simon Boccanegra, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - thrilling, magnificent explorationFriday, 19 April 2024
If ever more evidence were needed of Sir Mark Elder’s untiring zest for exploration and love of the thrill of live opera performance, it was this ground-breaking collaborative event with Opera Rara – a performance coupled to a new studio recording... Read more... |
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