19th century
Lakmé, Opera Holland ParkFriday, 10 July 2015
Operatic hit parades have always been subject to fashion. For people of my parents’ generation, the famous number from Delibes’s Lakmé was the heroine’s coloratura Bell Song, immortalised at the movies by Lily Pons and Kathryn Grayson. Now it’s the... Read more... |
Rigoletto, Longborough FestivalThursday, 09 July 2015
The gable end of Martin Graham’s converted barn opera-house at Longborough is surmounted by statues of three composers: pride of place, not surprisingly, to Wagner – the festival’s raison d’être – and with Verdi and Mozart on either side. It’s true... Read more... |
Falstaff, Royal OperaTuesday, 07 July 2015
It may only be a revival, but this is what the Royal Opera does best, above all in fielding a living legend of a Falstaff for Verdi's last masterpiece who’d probably be beyond the pockets of many other houses. Italian baritone, masterchef and... Read more... |
Linneaus Tripe, Victoria & Albert MuseumThursday, 02 July 2015
Linnaeus Tripe? Shades of a minor character in Dickens or Trollope, but in fact the resoundingly named Tripe (1822-1902) was an army officer and photographer, the sixth son and ninth child of a professional middle-class family from Devonport, his... Read more... |
Guillaume Tell, Royal OperaTuesday, 30 June 2015
There are two operatic types who should leave Rossini’s epic swansong for the stage well alone. One would usually be a conductor who ignores many of the notes written by a master at the height of his powers, since even the least dramatic numbers... Read more... |
Richard Dadd: The Art of Bedlam, Watts GalleryFriday, 26 June 2015
The Watts Gallery in rural Surrey is a very genteel setting for a show by a figure who for most of his life was denied polite society. Richard Dadd spent 42 years in mental hospitals, first at Bethlem, then Broadmoor. As one can infer, he was... Read more... |
The Seagull, Regent's Park Open Air TheatreThursday, 25 June 2015
Hamlet instructs his players to "hold...the mirror up to nature”, advice taken literally in this arresting 120-year anniversary staging of Chekhov’s homage to the Bard. Jon Bausor’s set is dominated by a vast angled mirror, offering an appropriately... Read more... |
La Traviata: Love, Death and Divas, BBC TwoSunday, 21 June 2015
Verdi's La Traviata has become one of the best-loved and most-performed works in the operatic repertoire, but this is no thanks to sections of the English press. In this entertaining romp through the opera's history, presenters Tom Service and... Read more... |
Fighting History, Tate BritainSunday, 14 June 2015
For all the wrong reasons, the work of Dexter Dalwood serves as a useful metaphor for this exhibition. Trite, tokenistic and desperate to look clever, Dalwood’s paintings are as tiresomely inward-looking as the show itself, which is a dismal example... Read more... |
DVD: Home from HomeSaturday, 13 June 2015
Heimat was already one of cinema’s most extraordinary, majestic achievements. Edgar Reitz’s three series of films for German TV spent 53 hours exploring the humanity of the inhabitants of Schabbach, a Rhineland village much like Reitz's own roots,... Read more... |
Napoleon, BBC TwoThursday, 11 June 2015
It is irresistible to watch Andrew Roberts, the ambitious historian of one of history's most ambitious figures, narrating a three-part account of his hero’s life and times. He is giving us a superb analysis of Napoleon Bonaparte’s gifts, flaws,... Read more... |
The Elephant Man, Theatre Royal, HaymarketMonday, 01 June 2015
Beauty transforms itself into a beast but an inner grace shines forth regardless: such is the enduring power of Bernard Pomerance's stage play The Elephant Man, first seen in London almost 40 years ago and a Broadway semi-regular ever since. The... Read more... |
