fri 29/03/2024

Venice

Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict

The New Yorker Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) was the classic poor little rich girl: insecure, a woman with scores, perhaps hundreds of lovers, longing for love, the writer of tell-all memoirs. What sets her apart is that she was also the creator of...

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Le Donne Curiose, Guildhall School

Scintillating gems scattered rather thinly through long-winded operas: that superficial impression of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s often delectable music isn’t going to be changed greatly by seeing his first success of 1903, Le donne curiose (“Nosy Women...

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Theeb

The epic and the intimate combine impressively in Jordanian director Naji Abu Nowar’s debut feature Theeb. The epic is there is the scale of the stunning desert landscapes that are the backdrop – though the desert itself almost feels like a...

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Death in Venice, Garsington Opera

Lagoon, miasma and scirocco may seem as far away as you can get from the rolling hills and pleasant airs of the Wormsley Estate in deepest home counties territory. Nor are the bleached bones of Britten’s bleak if ultimately transformative operatic...

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Stray Dogs

Whatever you make of Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang’s Stray Dogs (Jiao you), it’ll likely have you looking at your watch. If you’re hypnotized by its almost narrative-free, stretched naturalism – stretched so far as to become effectively...

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Monteverdi Vespers, The Sixteen, Christophers, Winchester Cathedral

It has to be the ultimate cornucopia of choral and early-instrumental invention. So long as the musicians immerse themselves in the beauty of a strange adventure, it doesn’t matter where you hear Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610: however selective the...

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I Due Foscari, Royal Opera

First the good news. At 73, is Plácido Domingo anywhere near retiring? Er, no. When the question came up in an interview on Sunday (on video below), he answered : "The reason I don't retire is because I can still sing." And then with a glint in his...

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Veronese: Magnificence in Renaissance Venice, National Gallery

The National Gallery has produced a revelatory and unprecedented exhibition which shows us an array of paintings from cabinet size to mammoth by a long acknowledged star: Veronese, probably  the most flamboyantly exciting artist at the heart of...

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Jeremy Deller: English Magic, William Morris Gallery

As you may recall, Jeremy Deller represented Britain at last year’s Venice Biennale and a distilled version of English Magic, his British Pavilion show, is now installed in the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. It's an especially relevant first...

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Yuletide Scenes 7: Madonna and Child Enthroned

What better way to celebrate Christmas than by contemplating this sublime altarpiece by the celebrated Venetian artist Giovanni Bellini? It hangs above a sidechapel in the church of San Zaccaria in Venice offering blissful relief from the noise and...

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Death in Venice, Opera North

From the strange, stuttering opening to its elegiac, drawn-out coda, this is an exquisite, lovingly realised staging of Britten's last opera. It's so good that it amplifies any doubts that you might have about this peculiar, distinctly unlovable...

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Pieta

We learn from the front titles of Pieta that it’s Kim Ki-duk’s 18th film, and it won the Korean director the Golden Lion award at last year’s Venice film festival, against strong competition. Viewers may be asking themselves a rather different...

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