fri 29/03/2024

Tolstoy

Anna Karenina, Eifman Ballet of St Petersburg, London Coliseum

An apocryphal story tells of an awful theatrical adaptation of the story of Anne Frank. When the Nazis arrive to search the house where the family are in hiding, an enraged theatre-goer shouts, “She’s in the attic!” Well, I didn’t quite point Anna...

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theartsdesk Q&A: Russian Choreographer Boris Eifman

No choreographer so divides American and British critics as Russia's only international dancemaker, Boris Eifman. He's "an amazing magician of the theatre", according to the late, great US critic Clive Barnes. He "flaunts all the worst clichés of...

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theartsdesk in Moscow: Nikolai Ge at the Tretyakov Gallery

The Nikolai Ge retrospective at Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery marks the 180th anniversary of the artist’s birth – not the kind of round centenary or bicentenary landmark that often brings such projects to fruition. But the show is literally a...

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Anna Karenina, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera House

It is claimed that the philosopher GE Moore had a fantasy. After many years’ work, Tolstoy had finally finished War and Peace. Sonya had copied it out for the umpteenth time. The thing goes off to the printer. Peace reigns. And then, in...

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50 years since Nureyev defected and Kirov Ballet debuted in London

It's 50 years since the mighty Kirov Ballet made their debut London tour - reeling from Nureyev's defection days before at the Paris airport. The tour was promoted by the unique impresarios of Soviet culture, Victor and Lilian Hochhauser. Half a...

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War and Peace at the Circus, Giffords Circus

A village green, a little big top - and War and Peace. Sometimes large ambitions come in the smallest packages, and one can only take one’s hat off to the ambitious, pocket-sized Giffords Circus for setting out to squish Tolstoy’s four-volume epic...

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theartsdesk in Kabul: Talking Books in Dari and Pashto

Nearly 90 per cent of Afghan males listen to the radio. Soon this young man will be able to listen to 'Talking Books'

One Friday afternoon this spring, a friend led me to a low, dusty room in an education institute in the Afghan capital, Kabul. A few dozen men sat in neat rows. Most were young and wearing leather jackets, a few were older and in tweed jackets or...

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Imagine: The Trouble with Tolstoy, BBC One

Trouble? What trouble? There may be the odd reader who doesn't get past the Austerlitz sequence of War and Peace, and many who don't brave the master's last big novel questioning church and state, Resurrection, but that's their problem, not Tolstoy'...

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Anna Karenina, Arcola Theatre

Frankenstein, Pride and Prejudice, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Great Expectations: it’s getting harder and harder to name a classic novel that hasn’t found itself covered in greasepaint and pushed out onto the stage. With adaptations...

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Anna Karenina still leads Mariinsky Ballet's tour

The Mariinsky's 'Firebird': On a Fokine triple bill with Sheherazade and Chopiniana

True to form the Mariinsky Ballet has already made programme changes for its Covent Garden visit next summer, not a fortnight after announcing its tour on 3 December. But we're used to it and it's all to the good. Substituting Don Quixote for the...

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theartsdesk in Yasnaya Polyana: The Lost Centenary of Tolstoy's Death

Russia marks the centenary of the death of Leo Tolstoy on 20 November – but the level of local tribute to one of the country’s greatest writers seems markedly muted for a figure two of whose novels, Anna Karenina and War and Peace, are regularly...

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The Kreutzer Sonata

For scalpel-sharp dissection of the most vapid parts of Hollywood/LA life, told with low-budget digital flexibility that itself critiques studio indulgences, British director Bernard Rose is your man. He hit the note most viscerally in Ivansxtc a...

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