Barbican
Opus, Circa and Debussy String Quartet, BarbicanFriday, 21 February 2014
Well! Just when you think you’ve constructed a nice tripartite schema for dance styles based on their relationship with the ground, along comes a company which tears up that rule book entirely.Last week I theorized that contemporary dance goes down... Read more... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, BarbicanTuesday, 11 February 2014
An insider once told me that you get a grant for including puppets in a production. Which may account for the amount of crap puppetry haphazardly applied in the theatre. That certainly can't be said about the work of husband-and-husband team Adrian... Read more... |
Theodora, The English Concert, Bicket, Barbican HallSunday, 09 February 2014
The Barbican’s ongoing season of baroque operas and oratorios has been a mixed bag. Most recently The Sixteen’s Jephtha was a rather lacklustre affair, leaving me nervous of committing to the many hours of Handel’s beautiful (but protracted)... Read more... |
10 Questions for Director Tom MorrisTuesday, 04 February 2014
Two lanky, totemic marionettes with stern carved faces – one male, one female – coast haltingly around a rehearsal room in Bristol. They are being operated from inside metal framing by actors who coax tentative movement into arms and necks. “... Read more... |
Vengerov, LSO, Pappano, BarbicanMonday, 03 February 2014
An all-British programme – with plenty of Italian flavours – opened to a sold-out Barbican Hall with the overture In the South (Alassio), composed by Elgar during a stay on the Italian Riviera. It isn’t one of his most memorable scores, but it still... Read more... |
Scholl, Academy Of Ancient Music, BarbicanSaturday, 01 February 2014
As a generalist (or dilettante) who writes about world, jazz, pop and classical music, I have no doubt that 10 years ago Andreas Scholl was one of the great voices of the planet alongside names like Abida Parveen from Pakistan and Caetano Veloso... Read more... |
Jansen, LSO, Pappano, BarbicanFriday, 31 January 2014
There were, it seemed, enough trumpets to serve Gabriel throughout eternity - and, as fanfares go, this one was stretching a point and then some. LSO On Track had commissioned it from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and, true to the spirit of this... Read more... |
Katia & Marielle Labèque, BBCSO, Bychkov, Barbican HallFriday, 17 January 2014
The first half of this concert was quite the family affair: Martinů’s Concerto for Two Pianos featuring the eternally youthful Katia and Marielle Labèque, with the latter’s husband Semyon Bychkov conducting.Any natural rapport took a... Read more... |
Jephtha, The Sixteen, Christophers, BarbicanWednesday, 15 January 2014
You really think they’d have learned by now. Any operatic vow to sacrifice the next living creature you see in return for salvation will reliably end up with the luckless suppliant faced with their lover/son/spouse. For those who haven’t already... Read more... |
Kožená, Les Violons du Roy, Barbican HallSunday, 12 January 2014
Last night’s Mozart and Haydn concert at the Barbican was billed as Magdalena Kožená with Les Violons du Roy. In practice it actually turned out to be Les Violons du Roy with Magdalena Kožená, which (barring a few die-hard fans of the Czech mezzo)... Read more... |
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Oramo, BarbicanThursday, 09 January 2014
Now this is what I call an orchestra showing off: you unleash four of your horns on the most insanely difficult yet joyous of sinfoniettas for accompanied horn quartet, Schumann’s Konzertstück, and later let the other four light the brightest of... Read more... |
Brewer, BBCSO, Gardner, BarbicanSaturday, 21 December 2013
Although worlds away from festive mangers and mince pies, the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s pre-Christmas offering spread good cheer aplenty thanks to an absorbing programme of Austro-German repertoire that explored the outer reaches of Romanticism... Read more... |
