Reviews
Ismene Brown
Feature films about ballet are rarities - are the memorable ones those that are realistic about their strenuous world or are they the expressionistic shockers that let rip with the red eyes and OTT fantasies? Black Swan became an instant world hit on the strength of its purple take on showbiz (never mind it was packaged in a ballet scenario, this was more a riproaring horror story). Love Tomorrow is altogether something else. Like Black Swan it isn't really about ballet as such - that's simply the setting for a delicate, elusive romance-cum-friendship between two dancers, both facing a Read more ...
David Nice
French-Canadian pianist Hamelin has the technique and the stamina to play anything, which is why the note-crazy, obsessive “Night Wind” Sonata of Nikolay Medtner buzzed around at the heart of his recital. But between the proud resonance of its many climaxes and the distant voices he showcased so effectively in his own Barcarolle – three movements rather than one, unexplained in a note which simply ignored it – there’s little delicacy in the middle ground.That made much of Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit less than phantasmagorical. “Ondine” should be the plaintive water-nymph, billowing to gusts of Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Energy is this season’s dirty word. The big six fix prices from their ivory towers beyond the national borders, and wouldn’t dream of turning up in person to take a fearful wigging from a Commons Select Committee. In the old days, it was all a bit different. Energy came overwhelming from coal, mined domestically by a huge workforce. So central to British life was coal that, when the industry was nationalised in 1947, the National Coal Board took what now seems a remarkable decision to set up a film unit and show the results in up to 800 cinemas.The Mining Review consisted of dramas, Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Masterpieces of Chinese Painting 700-1900 is just what it says: a spectacular collection of nearly 80 banners, handscrolls, hanging scrolls and fans, gathered from major collections in China and Japan – many of which have never travelled west before – as well as the United States and Europe. The status of painting, drawing and poetry was extremely high through millennia of Chinese history until all traditions fractured in the revolutions of the 20th century. The visual arts, often incorporating the finest calligraphy, an art form in itself, (the poems giving further meaning to the Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
Berlioz wanted to make the first arrival of his demon onstage unforgettable, with an extreme sound effect - violins and violas marked sul ponticello, strettissimo, starting fortissimo, with interjections from three trombones snarling in minor seconds. In last night's performance of La Damnation de Faust that moment was glossed over. It flashed past as if it had never happened.In many of the sections of the work which involved the vocal soloists and chorus, particularly in the first half, Valery Gergiev seldom looked up from his score. It produced a detached reading of the work. He took a Read more ...
Katherine McLaughlin
The 65th Cannes film festival acts as the backdrop for this compelling, if somewhat misguided documentary from James Toback. Accompanied by Alec Baldwin, Toback sets out to shame Hollywood for its decision to continually churn out megabuck franchises and mediocrity rather than investing in risky, original cinema as the pair try to get funding for their own film project.From the outset their plan to reinterpret Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris (set in Iraq starring Alec Baldwin and Neve Campbell) is questionable; is this a real project, or are they simply trying to provoke a Read more ...
Heather Neill
David Pinner's 1973 play showcases a string quartet working out their own problematic relationships while world leaders decide the shape of post-war politics. Between bouts of playing Haydn, Bartok and - at Stalin's request - Borodin in the conference chamber, they bicker in the anteroom next door.That anteroom setting seems to offer opportunities for juxtaposing the values of art and politics, but in the end merely provides a backdrop. The four-string players would be bickering in just this way if they were entertaining guests at a posh wedding in the Home Counties. They even reassure the Read more ...
Jasper Rees
These celebrations of our yesterdays can easily end up all camembert and wind. But while film people and television people will generally cock such things up, we do still have the odd cultural institution which can be relied upon to throw the right sort of party. For the National Theatre's golden jubilee, therefore, the stops were jolly well pulled out and the invitations damn well accepted from the actors who, striplings at the Old Vic in the Sixties, are now our own Oliviers and Ashcrofts and Scofields. And it was almost all impeccable.Of course the greatest frissons were reserved for those Read more ...
Kimon Daltas
This was Sakari Oramo's first concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra since taking over as chief conductor. Of course he knows the orchestra well already, but it was important to make this a good ’un, and so it was.It opened with the world premiere of a 20-minute work by French composer Tristan Murail, with the double title Reflections/Reflets. As the title perhaps suggests it offered an evocative, colouristic sound world. The first half, "Spleen", dealt in bells, swells and waves rising out of a murky brass and low string background. The second, "High Voltage", featured slow glissandi, Read more ...
Mark Valencia
For a brand-new opera group to set something as ambitious as Don Giovanni before an audience demands sackfuls of self-awareness and confidence. But the eight young singers of Opera Vera are no mere enthusiasts – they are rich in experience and can all boast busy CVs – so it would be discourteous to consider them by anything other than rigorous professional criteria. Given the opera’s countless bear-traps, then, it is not to damn with faint praise to say that they produced an intelligent and thoroughly musical account of Mozart’s score.Accompanied by 11 musicians from the Brillig Ensemble Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
William Onyeabor: World Psychedelic Classics 5 – Who is William Onyeabor?A primitive drum machine rattles out a Latin rhythm. Keyboards begin. The gaps between the repetitive spirals of notes are plugged by blobs of fat synth. A disembodied yet warm voice sings “Good name is better than silver and gold. And no money, no money, no money, no money can buy good name.” The melody nods towards Kraftwerk’s “Computer World”. The music is as intense as early Marshall Jefferson and the whole suggests Tom Tom Club.William Onyeabor's “Good Name” is compelling and electrifying: minimal and Read more ...
Veronica Lee
When Andrew Maxwell premiered Banana Kingdom at the Edinburgh Fringe earlier this year, its title made a lot more sense. The show was a coruscating examination of what Scotland might be if the independence vote next September goes Alex Salmond's way; a tiny nation trying to go it alone at a time when the rest of Europe wants to be an even bigger - and of course happier - family.At the start of his run at the Soho Theatre, however, the Irishman tells us he has reworked the show, jettisoning much of the Scottish content because he felt it wasn't relevant to London audiences. I rather think he's Read more ...