Czech
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... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Liszt, SibeliusFriday, 08 July 2011
This week’s reviews include a generous Liszt anthology played by one of the 20th century’s most fondly remembered pianists. There’s a reissued box of Beethoven symphonies performed on modern instruments by one of the classiest European orchestras.... Read more... |
Rusalka, Grange Park OperaThursday, 16 June 2011
Its little-mermaid legend is enough to make the angels weep, given the bewitching gravity of Dvořák's masterpiece: a water nymph, caught between the human and supernatural worlds, condemns herself to eternal limbo for the sake of her erring princely... Read more... |
DVD: Jan Švankmajer's AliceTuesday, 31 May 2011
This remarkable 1988 adaptation of Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland opens with Alice addressing the audience. “This is a story for children,” she tells us, before adding a teasing note: “Perhaps.” And that “perhaps” is worth noting, for... Read more... |
The Bartered Bride, BBCSO, Bělohlávek, Barbican HallSaturday, 21 May 2011
What a relief, for half of last night's semi-staged concert performance, to have left behind Britten's claustrophobic wood at English National Opera and to seek refuge in Smetana's Bohemian village inn of good cheer. Czech music's national comic... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Comedian Omid DjaliliSaturday, 09 April 2011
Omid Djalili is a funny man with a funny provenance. There are not many stand-ups about who speak the languages of Presidents Havel and Ahmedinejad, who have played both Muslims and Jews without being either one or the other, whose CV includes... Read more... |
DVD: Larks on a StringThursday, 17 March 2011
The Czech New Wave sprouted out of a fertile collaboration between film and fiction. Milan Kundera started out as a lecturer in film, lest we forget; one of his pupils was Miloš Forman. Both flew the communist nest to live and create abroad, which... Read more... |
DVD: A Blonde in LoveMonday, 24 January 2011
Miloš Forman’s second feature, from 1965, catches the absurd atmosphere of the director’s native Czechoslovakia with both quiet desperation and raw tenderness. Heroine Andula (Hana Brejchová) works in a shoe factory in a town where women outnumber... Read more... |
Mutter, LSO, Sir Colin Davis, BarbicanMonday, 11 October 2010
It didn't help that the London Symphony Chorus sounded rough and hectoring rather than earthily ecstatic - and I'm not sure how well they had been coached in the Czech-language mass settings. Heroic tenor Simon O'Neill, Sir Colin's last-minute... Read more... |
The Seckerson Tapes: Soprano Amanda RoocroftTuesday, 21 September 2010
Amanda Roocroft was a star from the moment she graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music. At 25, Sir Georg Solti asked her to sing Pamina at the Salzburg Festival. She declined. It was too soon. Where would there be left to go? "Hurry... Read more... |
The Makropulos Case, English National OperaTuesday, 21 September 2010
Opera spends so much of its time killing off female protagonists that it's refreshing to come back to The Makropulos Case. In it Janáček, in one of his many moments of generosity, imagines what might happen if you allowed a woman not just to live... Read more... |
