Russia
Words of War review - portrait of a doomed truth-seeker in Putin's RussiaThursday, 08 May 2025
The reporting of Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist who was shot dead in her Moscow apartment building in 2006 – on Vladimir Putin’s birthday, a deranged gift from his loyal security services – is perhaps the nearest thing we have to a full... Read more... |
LSO, Noseda, Barbican review - Half Six shake-upThursday, 10 April 2025
Tired after a hard day at the office? You might think you need a Classic FM-style warm bath, but the blast of Prokofiev’s Second Symphony, one of the noisiest in the repertoire, is the real ticket to recharging the batteries. Gianandrea Noseda, on... Read more... |
Howard Amos: Russia Starts Here review - East meets West, via the Pskov regionTuesday, 01 April 2025
Russia Starts Here: Real Lives in the Ruin of Empire, the journalist Howard Amos’ first book, is a prescient and fascinating examination of the borderlands of a bellicose nation. Focusing on the Pskov region, which juts out into eastern Europe, his... Read more... |
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Czech Philharmonic, Bychkov, Barbican review - from Russia, with tough loveSaturday, 08 March 2025
Exactly half a century ago, Semyon Bychkov fled the USSR for the United States as he sought to swap tyranny for liberty. Last night, in a world that feels utterly different yet even more terrifying, the great conductor turned the stellar talents of... Read more... |
Onegin, Royal Ballet review - a poignant lesson about the perils of youthTuesday, 04 February 2025
It would be hard to find an antihero more anti than Eugene Onegin. The protagonist of Alexander Pushkin’s long verse novel of 1833 is a wrecker of lives. Charismatically handsome yet arrogant, cynical and bored, his effect on those who fall under... Read more... |
The Snowmaiden, English Touring Opera review - a rich harvest with modest meansMonday, 30 September 2024
Just as the first autumn chills began to grip, English Touring Opera rolled into Hackney Empire with a reminder that the sun – “god of love and life” – will eventually return. But at what price of suffering and sacrifice? Rimsky-Korsakov’s third... Read more... |
Andsnes, London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, Gardner, RFH review - total clarity in classic-romantic and prophetic RachmaninovMonday, 30 September 2024
If there was ever a time for the inevitable "Rach Three” (piano concerto, not symphony) in the composer’s 150th anniversary year – and I confess I dodged other occasions – it might as well have come in the fresh and racy shape of Leif Ove... Read more... |
Wang, Lapwood, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - grace and power from two keyboard heroinesMonday, 16 September 2024
It takes stiff competition to outshine Yuja Wang, who last night at the Barbican complemented her spangled silver sheath with a disconcerting pair of shades. But the super-heroine pianist, who played Rachmaninov’s First Piano Concerto, turned out to... Read more... |
Fiddler on the Roof, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - dazzling gem of a production marks its diamond anniversaryThursday, 08 August 2024
If I were a rich man, I'd be inclined to put together a touring production of Fiddler on the Roof and send it around the world, a week here, a week there, to educate and entertain. But, like Tevye, I also have to sell a little milk to put... Read more... |
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Philharmonia Chorus, RPO, Petrenko, RFH review - poetic cello, blazing chorusFriday, 12 April 2024
Purple patches flourished in the first half of this admirable programme: it could hardly have been otherwise given Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s devotion to a new work in his repertoire, and the current strength of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under... Read more... |
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, Marylebone Theatre review - from Russia with loveFriday, 29 March 2024
Like all great literature, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s final, eccentric, playfully wondrous short story seems to have been written just for us – across two centuries and on the other side of the world. It’s a resonance that ripples through Laurence Boswell’... Read more... |
Uncle Vanya, Orange Tree Theatre review - Chekhov served up choiceMonday, 11 March 2024
"We all live here in peace and friendship," notes Telegin (David Ahmad), otherwise known as Waffles, early in Uncle Vanya, to which one is tempted to respond, "yeah, right."As casually bruising a play as I know, Chekhov's wounding yet also brutally... Read more... |
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