Britten
Richard Alston Dance Company 20th Anniversary Performances, Sadler's WellsTuesday, 27 January 2015
Testament to the work of Richard Alston Dance Company (RADC) over the 20 years since its foundation was not just the première-filled celebratory programme performed at Sadler's Wells last night, but the enthusiastic audience there to see it. Alston'... Read more... |
Best of 2014: OperaSaturday, 27 December 2014
When everything works – conducting, singing, production, costumes, sets, lighting, choreography where relevant – then there’s nothing like the art of opera. But how often does that happen? In my experience, very seldom, but not this year. It's been... Read more... |
Ceremony of Innocence/The Age of Anxiety/Aeternum, Royal BalletSaturday, 08 November 2014
English National Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet have staged programmes of war pieces already this year; now here's the Royal Ballet bringing up the rear in its own inimitable (and rather oblique) fashion with a triple bill that picks up on and... Read more... |
Shadows of War, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Sadler's WellsSaturday, 18 October 2014
Another week, another war commemorative; it’s the story of all the arts in 2014. But – because you can always rely on David Bintley and Birmingham Royal Ballet to be different – last night’s programme at Sadler’s was overshadowed by the Second World... Read more... |
Prom 47: Britten War Requiem, CBSO, BBC Proms Youth Choir, NelsonsFriday, 22 August 2014
Nothing has resonated through the unfolding First World War commemorations more than the poetry of Wilfred Owen; and in terms of its grim immediacy and enduring heartbreak nothing ever could. Benjamin Britten knew that when he set down his War... Read more... |
Gerhardt, Osborne, Queen's Hall/Keyrouz, Ensemble de la Paix, Greyfriars Kirk, EdinburghThursday, 14 August 2014
“Ah now, I can’t promise you sun,” says a Scots lady-in-waiting of her native weather to a novice Englishwoman near the start of Rona Munro’s masterly James Plays. It’s the first of many references to make the audience laugh knowingly. Well, after... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Pianist Saleem and Violinist Nabeel Abboud AshkarSunday, 03 August 2014
Saleem (born 1976), having dropped the "Abboud" from his name, is one of the world’s most individual top pianists: his recent disc of Mendelssohn concertos with Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester is bound to make my “best of year”... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the East Neuk Festival: Littoral SchubertiadSunday, 20 July 2014
Schubert played and sung through a long summer day by the water: what could be more enchanting? The prospect did not take into account the pain in that all too short-lived genius’s late work: when interpreted by a world-class trio, quartet and... Read more... |
The Turn of the Screw, Opera Holland ParkWednesday, 02 July 2014
“Is this sheltered place the wicked world where things unspoken of have been?” The Governess’s question echoes through the careful suggestions and delicate temporal interweavings of Annilese Miskimmon’s The Turn of the Screw, twisting smiles into... Read more... |
Owen Wingrave/ Pavel Haas Quartet, Aldeburgh FestivalMonday, 16 June 2014
What a red letter day it is when a work you’ve always thought of as problematic seems at last, if only temporarily, to have no kind of fault or flaw. That was the case for me on Sunday afternoon with Britten’s penultimate opera, Owen Wingrave,... Read more... |
Peter Grimes, Grange ParkSaturday, 31 May 2014
It takes a brave opera company indeed to stage Peter Grimes this summer. Benjamin Britten’s 2013 centenary celebrations took us to “peak Britten”, with performances of all his major works as well as the unprecedented, outstanding Grimes on the Beach... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Lyon: Britten FêtedFriday, 23 May 2014
“Assez vu” (“seen enough”) is the first line of Benjamin Britten’s last Rimbaud setting in his electric song cycle Les Illuminations. Victor Hugo and Paul Verlaine had been the objects of his 14-year old attention in the Quatre Chansons françaises;... Read more... |
