Features
theartsdesk in Odessa: Monty Python on the Black SeaSunday, 31 July 2011
Odessa must be one of Central Europe’s more distinctive cities, characterised by a profoundly cosmopolitan ethnic mix over more than two centuries. It was one of the most international cities in the Tsarist empire, while in Soviet times it honed... Read more... |
French Cancan: Jean Renoir in the Moulin RougeSaturday, 30 July 2011
When Jean Renoir returned to France at the end of 1953 after 13 years of exile, he felt as if he were beginning his career from scratch. His Hollywood films were not highly regarded, and neither The River (1951) nor The Golden Coach (1953), shot in... Read more... |
Opinion: Why are we so ghoulishly obsessed with self-destruction?Tuesday, 26 July 2011
By and large, Adele Adkins chooses to avoid the limelight, and therefore little is known of either her personal life or her indulgences, whatever they may be. The spectacular success of 21 suggests that her audience couldn't care less either way,... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Verbier: A Cable Car Named InspireSunday, 24 July 2011
I’m standing with my feet on peaks and my head in clouds, looking down steep Alps at the tiny chocolate-brown chalets of little Verbier way below on the green slopes. It’s ravishing up here on the top of Fontanet, and I tarry, gloating over the... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Kuala Lumpur: Culture as a WeaponSunday, 24 July 2011
As hot, sweaty tourists dangle their feet in pools for Thai Nibble Fish to eat the dead skin from their feet at Kuala Lumpur’s quirky Art Deco Central Market, a small theatre upstairs is packed for a play about racial divisions and the myth of... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Buxton Festival: An Opera a DayTuesday, 19 July 2011
An opera a day keeps boredom at bay. There’s no danger of boredom in Buxton in mid-July. Set 1,000ft up in the Derbyshire hills, on the edge of the Peak District, and blessed with an Edwardian gem of an opera house, the old spa town is now well... Read more... |
theartsdesk in La Rochelle: FrancofoliesTuesday, 19 July 2011
The French national holiday of 14 July might be marked by parades and fly-pasts in Paris, but here on the Atlantic coast it’s the central date for Francofolies, the annual festival dedicated to French music. La Rochelle hosted its first Francofolies... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Flanders: Return to Journey's EndFriday, 15 July 2011
The battlefields of the First World War are frequented most by secondary school groups and military history enthusiasts. And by David Grindley: a man for whom the play Journey’s End is an obsession, and his direction of it award-winning. RC Sherriff... Read more... |
Mendelssohn on Mull: Close-up with Chamber MusicWednesday, 13 July 2011
Getting to Mull is an improbably romantic journey to classical music-making. One can easily understand why Mendelssohn was so affected by his experiences in Scotland – and Mull. On the three-hour train journey from Glasgow one sheds the habits of... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Copenhagen: The Copenhagen Jazz FestivalTuesday, 12 July 2011
“In jazz music you have the freedom, you have the expression. You have the visceral and you have the intellectual. Everything can be expressed through jazz, and is expressed through jazz and through the medium of improvisation. This is the highest... Read more... |
Interview Special: Bolshoi Dancers Natalia Osipova & Ivan VasilievSunday, 10 July 2011
“What I love about her is her emotion, her true emotion. She’s a ball of energy and emotion all together, quite an amazing thing. From the first time I saw her, I thought I want her to be my girlfriend.” Ivan Vasiliev, the young Bolshoi Ballet... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Cheltenham: Seven Concerts in Two DaysSunday, 10 July 2011
For so many days a year, Cheltenham's Regency symmetry and conservative values totter and buckle as they veer dangerously towards relative festive liberalism. As I sliced into one of the four annual beanfeasts, the Cheltenham Music Festival, it... Read more... |
