Edinburgh
Hanna Weibye
When the Royal Opera House told Kenneth MacMillan that Mahler was unsuitable for ballet, he went – where else? – to Germany. Though the success of MacMillan's Lied von der Erde for Stuttgart Ballet led to its happy adoption into Royal Ballet repertoire, making ballet to Mahler still seems to draw German companies more than others – whether because the orchestras, audiences, or state subsidies are better, who knows?But the company visiting the Edinburgh International Festival last night was not that familiar Mahler-exponent, Hamburg Ballet, whose director John Neumeier has tackled eight of the Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
It is an axiom of Israel Galván criticism to say the Spaniard is wired differently. He's the "Bowie of flamenco" - leggy and intense, unpredictably sparky, intemittently brilliant, and sometimes incomprehensible. His new show, Lo Real/Le Réel/The Real which had its UK premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival last night is about gypsies under Nazism and in the Holocaust, but it approaches its subject in an impressionistic, roundabout way that during the performance feels a lot more like a journey into Israel Galván's oddball consciousness than a history lesson.Of course, that is a kind Read more ...
David Kettle
It was the first major casualty of the 2015 Edinburgh International Festival. Global superstar pianist Lang Lang was stuck overseas, forbidden from flying by his doctor because of an ear infection, and therefore unable to perform Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra as planned (it had been an enticing prospect). But fear not, Lang Lang lovers – word is that he’ll be recovered in time for his solo recital of Bach, Chopin and Tchaikovsky on Friday 21 August.It was sad to see a few noticeable gaps among the Usher Hall’s seating, especially when there was an equally Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Aisling Bea, Gilded Balloon ★★★★Aisling Bea received an Edinburgh Comedy Awards best newcomer nomination for her excellent show in 2013, and she returns with another high-energy hour of clowning about and rapid-fire delivery mixed with some astute political observation. Entitled Plan Bea, it's ostensibly about confidence and shame, although a clear theme never quite emerges.She mentions with some pride Ireland's recent vote for equal marriage, contrasting the country of her childhood when her single mother would have been better thought of had her husband died rather than left, and who used Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Tom Allen, The Stand ★★★★Tom Allen tells us Both Worlds is about being gay, watching daytime TV, doing the gardening and his "crushing sense of wasting his life". But this is no misery comedy, far from it, as Allen gives us an hour of sparkling wit, much of it aimed at himself, while slinging a few piercing arrows at deserving targets.He addresses his neuroses, recounting the time as a child he stood on the edge of the swimming pool but didn't dare dive in – a good metaphor for a life lived as an observer rather than participant. He didn't fit in at his south London school, he Read more ...
David Kettle
Incoming director Fergus Linehan has assembled some of the most respected names in their fields for his first Edinburgh International Festival. For classical music, that means Anne-Sophie Mutter, Valery Gergiev and Michael Tilson Thomas (among many others); for dance it means Sylvie Guillem; and for theatre it means Simon McBurney’s Complicite and Robert Lepage.It’s a risky strategy – not to mention an expensive one – and an approach that could threaten to sideline more experimental, less starry artists whose names aren’t quite so well known. But on the strength of Lepage and his company Ex Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Katherine Ryan, The Stand ★★★★ "TV's Katherine Ryan," she introduces herself with heavy irony; the Canadian has gone from Fringe performer to never off the telly in just a few years and knows that the sobriquet can be both a compliment and a drawback. Yet when her waspish humour is such good value it's easy to see why producers love her.But she's even better live, and in Kathbum (her mother's childhood nickname for her), Ryan describes how she is soon to make a speech at her sister's wedding, the starting point of some very good comedy about her childhood. She was always an outsider in Read more ...
David Kettle
On paper it looked like it would be very much a concert of two halves. James MacMillan’s energetic, glittering Second Percussion Concerto was unveiled last year and received its first UK performance in London last December, and it was getting its premiere in the composer’s homeland at this Edinburgh International Festival concert from its dedicatee, percussionist Colin Currie, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. And in the second half, something entirely different: Sibelius’s rarely performed, hugely expansive choral symphony Kullervo.What brought the two contrasting works together – Read more ...
David Kettle
Irish playwright Enda Walsh has been a regular presence at recent Edinburgh festivals – or, to be more precise, at the Fringe, with provocative works of rich linguistic lyricism including The Walworth Farce in 2007 and The New Electric Ballroom in 2008. This year marks his first foray into the Edinburgh International Festival, and it’s with a very different work. The Last Hotel, receiving its world premiere there, is Walsh’s first opera libretto, a collaboration with Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy. It’s a terse, aphoristic text that at times has shades of Beckett – probably fitting for a Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Walking the Tightrope, Underbelly Potterow ★★★★ Subtitled The Tension Between Art and Politics, this collection of eight short plays on the subject of censorship was prompted by the boycott of an Israeli hip hop troupe at this venue last year. Do we have the right to stop art happening if we are offended by the artist or the content of their work, or where their funding comes from? Or is freedom of expression an absolute right?The standard of writing is consistently high (not always the case in a portmanteau work), much aided by a terrific cast of four and slick direction by Cressida Read more ...
David Kettle
It has felt like a strong year for the Edinburgh International Film Festival, even with new artistic director Mark Adams joining part-way through the programming process. And as the event sprinted towards its ever-denser conclusion – 17 "best of the fest" screenings of this year’s most in-demand films joined the already full programme for the event’s final day on Sunday 28 June – it was inevitably time to announce the festival’s award winners.Marielle Heller’s The Diary of a Teenage Girl (reviewed by Demetrios Matheou in his earlier round-up) took the best international feature film award, Read more ...
Christopher Lambton
It was as a violin soloist with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra that Joseph Swensen first appeared, in the mid-1980s, on the Scottish musical scene. He went on to become the orchestra’s principal conductor – a long and fruitful collaboration that lasted from 1996 to 2005. In this concert he returned to the orchestra where he now holds the title Conductor Emeritus, as both conductor and soloist, taking the podium for Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks and Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, and picking up his violin for Prokofiev’s Cinq Mélodies and Barber’s Violin Concerto.I have lost Read more ...