Reviews
Balanchine and Robbins, The Royal Ballet review - style and substanceTuesday, 08 June 2021
People often ask why it is that in ballet there are different casts on different nights, a practice alien to opera, musicals and theatre. The most obvious reason is practical. Ballet companies keep a number of principal dancers on salary who need... Read more... |
Grosvenor, RSNO, Chan, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall online review - too big for the small screenTuesday, 08 June 2021
By chance, I started watching this streamed concert shortly after hearing a live BBC broadcast of the Philharmonia playing in front of an audience for the first time in over a year. Much though I love the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, steadfast... Read more... |
Dark Days, Luminous Nights, Manchester Collective, The White Hotel, Salford review - a sense of HadesTuesday, 08 June 2021
Did you wonder what all those creative musicians and artists did when they couldn’t perform in public last winter? Some of them started making films. Putting film of yourself online was, after all, a way of communicating with an audience, and had... Read more... |
La traviata, Opera Holland Park review – a revival in rude healthMonday, 07 June 2021
Loudly and painfully, the consumptive Violetta wheezes before we hear a single note. Her pitiful gasping for the breath that deserts her precedes the prelude to Opera Holland Park’s La traviata; the same effect ushers in Act Three. At first I... Read more... |
Time, BBC One review - grim and gritty study of life behind bars by Jimmy McGovernMonday, 07 June 2021
Jimmy McGovern’s new three-part drama about prison life is about as far as you could travel from Ronnie Barker’s Seventies sitcom Porridge, even if they are both on the same TV channel. Having said that, McGovern’s fictional HM Prison Craigmore... Read more... |
Eugene Onegin, Garsington Opera review - choral and orchestral opulence for TchaikovskyMonday, 07 June 2021
Peasant harvesters enter from the facsimile of Lady Ottoline Morrell’s Garsington garden to the right (stage left) of the state-of-the-art pavilion and, splendidly led by a solo tenor (Dominick Felix), burst into song. The temptation is to burst... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Donovan - Hurdy Gurdy SongsSunday, 06 June 2021
Early last month, Donovan issued his extraordinary new single “I am the Shaman”. Recorded at David Lynch’s Los Angeles studio, it was produced by the polymath director and fellow transcendental meditation devotee. The accompanying video was also... Read more... |
The Death of a Black Man, Hampstead Theatre review - blistering theatre with an unflinching visionSaturday, 05 June 2021
This blistering, fearless play about an 18-year-old black entrepreneur on the King’s Road raises a myriad of uncomfortable questions that resonate profoundly with the Black Lives Matter debate. It’s just one remarkable aspect of The Death of a Black... Read more... |
Bronfman, Philharmonia, Salonen, RFH review – celebration around C majorSaturday, 05 June 2021
One of the many things we’ll miss when Esa-Pekka Salonen moves on from his 13 years as the Philharmonia’s principal conductor will be his programming. For this first of his farewell concerts, he’s not only chosen what he loves but made sure it all... Read more... |
The Making of Rodin, Tate Modern review - surrealist tendenciesSaturday, 05 June 2021
Undoubtedly the strangest thing in this exhibition dedicated to Rodin’s works in plaster is a rendition of Balzac’s dressing gown, visibly hollow, but filled out nevertheless by the ghostly contours of an ample male form. Not surprisingly, the... Read more... |
Four Quartets, Theatre Royal Bath review - Ralph Fiennes gives a compelling performanceFriday, 04 June 2021
For 75 captivating minutes, Ralph Fiennes digs deep into TS Eliot’s Four Quartets, the poet’s interlinked reflections on time, faith and the quest for spiritual enlightenment – in what is the first solo adaptation of Eliot’s work for the stage, a co... Read more... |
Gweneth Ann Rand, Simon Lepper, Wigmore Hall review - a richly hued collection of songsFriday, 04 June 2021
In the final concert marking the Wigmore Hall’s 120-year anniversary, soprano Gweneth Ann Rand and pianist Simon Lepper gave a programme of songs curated by Rand, titled "An Imperfect Tapestry". Described by Rand as "a personal reflection of black... Read more... |
