Reviews
David Nice
“What does opera have to say to the under-30s?” asked Alexandra Coghlan on theartsdesk yesterday. The question “what does opera have to say to the under-10s?” has had to wait until today. For although yesterday afternoon’s performance of Will Todd’s newish opera for children of all ages was the last in its second, sell-out run on the Yucca Lawn behind Holland Park House, it seemed essential to make my four-year-old goddaughter Mirabel available for comment, and that was the only date available in her diary. The answer? Another wildly enthusiastic “plenty”, from her, mother, aunt and me. Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
The first half of last night’s Prom was supposed to be linked by the theme of the First World War, but Anthony Marwood’s illness meant that Sally Beamish’s Violin Concerto, based on All Quiet on the Western Front, had to be replaced at late notice by her accordion concerto The Singing. And what a felicitous change it was; James Crabb stepped in to give a glowing performance of a fascinating and subtle work which, for me, is a better piece than the intense and difficult Violin Concerto.After the interval came music perceptibly foreshadowing the horrors of the Second World War. Walton’s First Read more ...
graham.rickson
Dutilleux: Symphony no 1, Tout un monde lontain, The Shadows of Time Xavier Phillips (cello), Seattle Symphony/Ludovic Morlot (Seattle Symphony Media)As symphonic openings go, this has to be one of the subtlest and most mysterious, a pizzicato passcaglia theme emerging imperceptibly on double bass. You’re reminded of the passacaglia from Britten’s Peter Grimes, as what happens above each repetition can bear little obvious relation to the theme. Then it’ll suddenly coalesce for a fleeting moment, the bass line punchier, as if it’s emerging through cigar smoke in a nightclub. Henri Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
School’s out for summer, even Parliament is on recess, and the streets around my house are suddenly devoid of children, as families make for the hills (or at least the beach). It should be dead season for all but prommers (and the suffering residents of Edinburgh) but ballet in London has had the most extraordinary week of first-class acts, with the Mariinsky at the Royal Opera House, Sylvie Guillem and Russell Maliphant at the Coliseum, and now the BalletBoyz’ 10-strong troupe The Talent at the Roundhouse in Camden.The programme is a double bill that premiered to huge acclaim 18 months ago, Read more ...
Simon Munk
Most first-person games immediately stick a gun in the bottom part of your screen. Developers seem to believe that the only exciting agency a player has in virtual worlds is to destroy them and kill the people populating them. A Story About My Uncle joins a small, but growing band of first-person games that ditch the shooting, for the better.Alongside such titles as Portal and Antichamber, A Story About My Uncle is led by puzzles, by grasping the world with a hand, or traversing through it, rather than shooting at it. Told as a bedtime story (like Princess Read more ...
David Nice
A monstrous celebration prefaced by thunderous organ chords is always going to be more the Albert Hall’s kind of thing than a comic opera viewed through the wrong end of the telescope. So Strauss’s Festival Prelude kicked off a first half of 150th birthday celebrations in more appropriate style than last week’s Der Rosenkavalier. Unfortunately what it ushered in worked less well up to the interval; but then there was Elgar’s Second Symphony to redeem all with heart and soul, the best possible visiting card for a golden-age Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Vasily Petrenko.You could Read more ...
Matt Wolf
The long march of history pales next to the clamped-down passions and pulpy theatrics of A Promise, the first English-language film from that often most sinuous and witty of French directors, Patrice Leconte. Wit, alas, is nowhere to be seen on this occasion, which may just mark the worst foray into non-native celluloid territory since The Lives of Others' Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck gave us The Tourist four years ago.Leading lady Rebecca Hall gets to wear an array of nice hats, and classical music devotees will thrill to the overuse of Beethoven to amplify the mood; everyone else will Read more ...
Simon Munk
On technical grounds, it's pretty hard as a gamer not to simply be amazed by Modern Combat 5 – it is, pretty much, a fully-functioned, first-person shooter to rival Call Of Duty and Battlefield, only on your phone rather than a dedicated home console.That's not just talking in terms of visuals – although they're the most immediately impressive thing about the game. As well as the graphics, there's the amount of single-player missions, the multi-player and the plethora of side-quests, weapons upgrades and loadout options available also.Unfortunately, visual and technical elements are not the Read more ...
Katherine McLaughlin
Marvel takes a risk with the origins story of an eclectic crew of potty-mouthed thieves and criminals based on a little known comic book series, and it pays off thanks to Nicole Perlman’s and James Gunn’s confident script which follows the superhero formula yet sprinkles it with a charming off-kilter quality.The threat of mass genocide looms heavily over the galaxy, with evil beings chasing a mysterious orb which holds the power to destroy civilization with one fell swoop. However, an unwitting hero named Peter Quill (or Starlord as he prefers) is set for glory and a whole heap of trouble Read more ...
Florence Hallett
If, like me, you switched this on feeling sheepish about your sketchy knowledge of Chinese art, you would have welcomed as a ready-made excuse the news that some monuments synonymous with Chinese culture are relatively recent discoveries. It seems unthinkable that the terracotta army guarding the burial site of China’s first Emperor Qin Shi Huang was the stuff of legend and rumour until 1974, but it turns out that much of the 22-square-mile area occupied by the memorial is still to be explored and it could be another century before the site is fully excavated.We have all seen those eerie Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Last night’s performance of PUSH at the London Colisem left me exhilarated and downcast in equal measure. Exhilarated because dancer Sylvie Guillem, dancer/choreographer Russell Maliphant and lighting genius Michael Hulls together create the Holy Grail of dance, a blend of intelligence, talent and charisma so stunning and convincing that it seems to trascend description and become sacramental. And downcast because this run is the last of PUSH in London, and so for most of us the last time we’ll ever see it, or perhaps even see Guillem or Maliphant perform.Rarely has the transience of dance as Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
If I had to pick the highlight of this sun-drenched WOMAD it would have to be the fresh, emotionally charged set of Ukrainian band Dakha Brakha. I can’t recall seeing such a unanimously positive response for a relatively unknown band at the Festival. It wasn’t as if the music was obviously crowd-friendly, and parts were quite challenging, mixing soulfully sung Ukrainian folk tunes with other influences – Nigerian drumming, Bulgarian singing and Japanese koto.They call it “ethno-chaos”. As an untypical folk band, their jaunty stovepipe hats are not traditional but do give them an instant Read more ...