Czech
DVD: Traps/Fruit of ParadiseThursday, 16 April 2015
“Iconoclast” is the word used in one of the booklet essays accompanying Second Run’s rerelease of two films by the great Czech director Věra Chytilová (1929-2014) to describe her work. Other terms that have appeared over the years include: feminist... Read more... |
The Bartered Bride, Opera NorthSunday, 26 October 2014
Groan-inducing rhymes are becoming a feature of Opera North’s autumn season. Like their Coronation of Poppea, this revival of The Bartered Bride has some cracking lines. Matching "swanky" with "cranky" and "lanky" is pretty neat, but hearing James... Read more... |
DVD: A Jester's TaleTuesday, 23 September 2014
The name of Czech director Karel Zeman is far less-known in the English-speaking world than it deserves to be. He began working during World War Two, establishing a name for himself in the rich Czech animation school (and proving a later influence... Read more... |
DVD: The White Dove/Josef KiliánThursday, 24 October 2013
Though never really part of the country’s groundbreaking New Wave, František Vláčil was a Czech master who's best known for his films like Marketa Lazarová and The Valley of the Bees, both complex historical works. His first feature The White... Read more... |
The Cunning Little Vixen, Welsh National OperaMonday, 25 February 2013
Janáček’s opera subjects – the 300-year-old opera singer, the composer with a mad mother-in-law, the Siberian prison camp – are by any standards a fairly rum collection. But The Cunning Little Vixen is arguably the most deviant of the whole bunch.... Read more... |
DVD: The Czechoslovak New Wave - A CollectionTuesday, 04 December 2012
For all its playful, subversive energy, it’s sometimes easy to view the Czech New Wave as kind of a stylistic monolith. In fact, the slackening of state control between 1963 to 1968 spawned a variety of filmic departures, and three very different... Read more... |
Crabb, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Hrůša, Barbican HallSunday, 25 November 2012
There are always risks involved in the uncompromising side of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s family-friendly concerts. Succulent slices of fox-meat in the form of a suite from Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen gave the kids a nourishing start, and... Read more... |
DVD: Conspirators of PleasureFriday, 29 June 2012
A few of the things that are made to seem intensely erotic in this film: glue, bread, nails, carp, a satchel, a lift door, the death of a hen, the postal service, and in one particularly discombobulating scene, giant multi-headed shaving brushes.... Read more... |
Václav Havel, 1936-2011Sunday, 18 December 2011
In Rock’n’Roll, the play by Tom Stoppard, two characters haunt the stage without actually appearing on it. One of them, Syd Barrett, absconded from Pink Floyd to lead the life of a hermit. The other, Václav Havel, gave up the life of an... Read more... |
Rysanov, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bělohlávek, Barbican HallFriday, 11 November 2011
When telling a complex musical story, handle with care. Interpreters need have no fear of composers who find selective, tone-friendly angles in their literary sources, like Janáček with Gogol’s Taras Bulba in last night’s searing finale, or... Read more... |
CD: Pavel Novák - 24 Preludes and FuguesSunday, 11 September 2011
Pavel Novák is a composer I know something about because he has been much played by the Schubert Ensemble, who were for a time resident at Cardiff University, where I teach. But broadly speaking his music is virtually unknown in the UK. When William... Read more... |
First Night of the 2011 PromsSaturday, 16 July 2011
Here we are again. Marvel as you enter at the aptly gaudy lighting of Albert's colosseum, but know that unless your place is with the Prommers towards the front of the arena, the musicians will often sound as if they're in another galaxy - maybe one... Read more... |
