Reviews
David Nice
Once in a blue moon, the judges would seem to have got it wrong. I can think only of 2001, when stunning Latvian mezzo Elina Garanča failed to win the coveted goblet but has since gone on to deserved fame as one of the top half-dozen singers on the international stage today. This year, though, it was business as usual: the panel lit up by a gracious Dame Kiri, three of the singers who didn’t make it to the final,sound telly opera trouper Mary King and I all agreed that regal American with a twinkle Jamie Barton deserved the palm.How so, given that all five finalists – not to mention the Read more ...
emma.simmonds
"When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion," writes Margaret Atwood in Alias Grace, and it's these words that open Stories We Tell, fellow Canadian Sarah Polley's fourth film. This is Polley's first documentary - although it hardly does it justice to call it that. It starts by telling a family story - a story Polley herself is indeed smack bang in the middle of - which requires her to be both director and detective, and presents her with the seemingly impossible task of distancing herself. Yet as it progresses Stories We Tell evolves into something Read more ...
stephen.walsh
"This," Lizzie Graham writes in the programme book of the current Longborough Festival, “is definitely the test of whether or not it is possible to put on a convincing Ring in a small, privately-owned country theatre.” I don’t think Lizzie or her husband, Martin, the festival’s founders and owners of the theatre, can have seriously doubted that the answer would be yes. Serious doubts seem not to be part of their entrepreneurial make-up; or if they are, they suppress them. But the noisy acclaim of the far from provincial or rustic audience at the end of Götterdämmerung on Saturday must all the Read more ...
graeme.thomson
Lucinda Williams’s current tour might be billed as “intimate”, but anyone who has seen her perform before will know that intimacy tends to come with the ticket. It is true, however, that this pared-down format, in which she performs drummerless and accompanied – splendidly – by Doug Pettibone and David Sutton on guitars, pedal steel, bass and harmonies, brings the audience even closer to her extraordinary voice and unflinching words. In Edinburgh last night, the effect wasn’t “intimate” so much as visceral: at times it felt like placing a microscope over an open wound.Two of the first three Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
“Marianne Faithfull, you are first of all a timbre, a warm and bewitching voice…” Those were the words of the French Culture Minister in March 2011, when he awarded her the title of Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres. That celebrated vocal timbre has now settled comfortably, truly, deeply in the baritone register. With its occasional cracks and rawness, it gives her a capacity to interpret and to communicate songs with a rare combination of power and intimacy, backed up by her vast experience of performing in public. She reminded the audience that “As Tears Go By” - "the song which Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Various Artists: Scared to Get Happy – A Story of Indie-pop 1980-1989It’s a good thing this box set has the hedge-betting sub-title A Story of Indie-pop. Making the definitive statement on a whole decade of pop’s undergrowth is probably impossible, but being so equivocal from the off sets up Scared to Get Happy as not bold enough to nail its colours to the mast.Compiling and licensing the material on Scared to Get Happy must have been a nightmare. Spread across the five CDs of this first large-scale collection of the era are 134 tracks, beginning with The Wild Swans’s 1982 single “ Read more ...
peter.quinn
When it comes to live performance, nothing quite socks it to the solar plexus like a choir singing their heart out. Last night, in the intimate space of Soho's Pizza Express Jazz Club, Urban Voices Collective (UVC) gave it to us with both barrels. Founded by Karl Willett in 2006, UVC’s most recent accolades include performing at the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games – backing the likes of Take That, Elbow, George Michael, The Who and Muse – performing at the 2013 BAFTAS and recording on Paloma Faith’s latest album Fall To Grace.Combining a refreshingly different vocal style Read more ...
graham.rickson
Britten and Shostakovich: Violin Concertos James Ehnes (violin), Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/Kirill Karabits (Onyx)No apologies for reviewing yet another Britten disc. This one couples the Violin Concerto with Shostakovich’s Concerto no.1; a pairing which makes such emotional and musical sense that you’re surprised it’s not been done more often. Everything hits the mark here. The incisive, virtuosic orchestral backing from Kirill Karabits' Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra is a perfect foil for James Ehnes’ jaw-dropping solo playing. The Britten has never opened with such cool poise; a Read more ...
David Nice
Britten’s coronation opera, paying homage less to our own ambiguous queen than to the private-public tapestries of Verdi’s Aida and Don Carlo, is not the rarity publicity would have you believe, at least in its homeland. English National Opera successfully rehabilitated it in the 1980s, with Sarah Walker resplendent as regent. Phyllida Lloyd’s much revived Opera North production gave Josephine Barstow the role of a lifetime, enshrined in an amazing if selective film. The real questions, then, were why choosy visionary Richard Jones agreed to stage Gloriana, and whether he would have fun at Read more ...
garth.cartwright
Having witnessed Neil Young’s shambolic O2 concert on Monday – Young treating the occasional venture into his back catalogue with listless contempt whilst serving up multiple banalities from his recent albums – I considered skipping seeing more veteran American rockers. But one should never pass on a chance to see The Stooges and, as their last London concert was in 2010 (beyond supporting Soundgarden in Hyde Park one sodden Friday last summer – what kind of insult is that where The Stooges open for Soundgarden?), the atmosphere before their Meltdown performance was one of huge expectation. Read more ...
Stuart Houghton
Act I of Kentucky Route Zero set out a stall of intriguing characters, noirishly low-res visuals and an atmosphere that slid imperceptibly between "eerie" and "magical". Arranged around the core gameplay of a classic point 'n' click adventure (think Monkey Island or Broken Sword) was something that was barely a game at all but rather a sort of magical realist road movie in gaming drag.There are no objects to collect and combine into tools, no mazes to navigate, and the only real puzzles are those you are left with once the game ends. This may sound like a recipe for rank pretension but Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The most interesting thing about this movie is what it says about the changing relationship between film and television. It's becoming commonplace to hear actors, writers and directors claiming that TV is now the place to be for powerful drama with narrative scope and rounded characters. Brad Pitt's zombie flick - directed by Marc Quantum of Solace Forster - falls short all round, and makes the evolving characters and storylines of TV's The Walking Dead look positively Shakespearean by comparison.Spoilers are of course to be deplored, but the story here is so predictable that there's not a Read more ...