19th century
Osborne, BBC Philharmonic, Bihlmaier, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - an orchestra at the top of its gameMonday, 11 March 2024Just a few days after the Hallé’s Bruckner 8, the BBC Philharmonic weighed in with his Seventh Symphony for its Manchester audience. We’re all getting a lot of Bruckner in his 200th anniversary year, and this was a wise choice, being one of his... Read more... |
Sargent and Fashion, Tate Britain review - portraiture as a performanceSaturday, 24 February 2024At the turn of the 20th century, London’s smart set queued up to get their portraits painted by American-born artist John Singer Sargent. Sitting for him was a performance, a way to show the world just how rich, glamorous, clever or important you... Read more... |
Cavalleria Rusticana/Aleko, Opera North review - a new foil for MascagniFriday, 16 February 2024Opera North have a new pairing for Mascagni’s popular but clichéd Cavalleria Rusticana in this double bill: an early Rachmaninov one-acter, written when he was 19. The production of the former is a revival of the one seen in 2017 in their Little... Read more... |
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Theatre Royal Haymarket review - inventive rollercoaster of a revampWednesday, 14 February 2024Oscar Wilde’s 1890 novella The Picture of Dorian Gray has given the world a trope built for flattery, along the lines of: “You look so young, you must have a portrait growing old in your attic”. But how many who use this line have read the text... Read more... |
The King and I, Dominion Theatre review - welcome return for the Rodgers and Hammerstein classicWednesday, 31 January 2024The giant crinolines are back, and the winsome little royal children with miniature temples on their heads, and the glorious songs. The King and I is at the Dominion for a six-week run: how does its storyline look under a 21st century follow-spot?... Read more... |
Radulović, Hallé, de la Parra, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - fun for the youngThursday, 25 January 2024Back on home ground, the Hallé begin 2024 in Manchester with a repeated programme. I heard the first of three performances this week. It includes one piece they played only 10 days ago on a tour in Spain with the orchestra’s new principal... Read more... |
Tchaikovsky's Wife review - husband materialSunday, 31 December 2023The movies haven’t been kind to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The Nutcracker Suite was a highlight of Walt Disney’s Fantasia (1940) perhaps, but the 1969 Soviet biopic directed by Igor Talankin was tedious and Ken Russell’s The Music Lovers, released... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Ravenna - Riccardo Muti passes on a lifetime's operatic wisdomTuesday, 26 December 2023Does “the practice of opera singing in Italy” need help from UNESCO, which has newly inscribed it on the “Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity”? Italian opera is surely immensely popular worldwide. But when it comes to... Read more... |
A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No 249, BBC Two review - mummy's boy unleashes hell in the halls of academeSunday, 24 December 2023Having previously brought us adaptations of M R James’s ghost stories, reviving the BBC tradition inaugurated by Lawrence Gordon Clark in the 1970s, Mark Gatiss has now turned to a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle for his annual Christmas chiller.... Read more... |
The Peasants review - earthbound animationSaturday, 09 December 2023After a few years of cinema, the wow factor of seeing actual things moving about on a screen wore off a bit and showmen saw that jump cuts and stop-motion – the dawn of animation – could lift audiences some more. The liberation from gravity, in fact... Read more... |
Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - championing the rich and rareFriday, 24 November 2023Sir Mark Elder’s zest for exploring fresh territory with the forces of the Hallé is unquenched even in his final season as music director. And who better to introduce the Stabat Mater of Rossini – a late flowering of the operatic wizard’s powers –... Read more... |
Napoleon review - Sir Ridley Scott's historical epic is wide but not deepWednesday, 22 November 2023Sir Ridley Scott has taken umbrage at the French critics who weren’t too impressed with his new movie. Not only do they not like his film, but the French “don’t even like themselves”, according to the dyspeptic auteur.But I feel our French cousins... Read more... |
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