thu 05/12/2024

London Coliseum

The Elixir of Love, English National Opera review - a tale of two halves

Sparkling Italian comic opera might have been just the tonic at this time. Trouble is, the bar was set so high recently by Wexford Festival Opera’s Le convenienze e inconvenienze teatrali, aka Viva la Mamma, that this better known, less malleable if...

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The Turn of the Screw, English National Opera review - Jamesian ambiguities chillingly preserved

At first, you wonder if the peculiar voice of Henry James’s maybe unreliable narrator can be preserved in this production. Surely the outcome is known if we first meet the Governess in an insane asylum bed? Yet whether she was mad or maddened during...

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Suor Angelica, English National Opera review - isolated one-acter lacks emotional inscaping

Puccini elevated the operatic tearjerker to tragic status in three masterpieces: La bohème, Madama Butterfly and Suor Angelica, rivalling the other two in intensity despite its brevity. Its special atmosphere works best as the central part of a...

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theartsdesk Q&A: Nina Ananiashvili, founder of the State Ballet of Georgia

Great ballet dancers who boldly turn away from a stellar international career to grow a national ballet company in their homelands are few, but legendary. Alicia Alonso did it in Cuba, Ninette de Valois did it in Britain. And, dancing across the...

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Spirited Away, London Coliseum review - spectacular re-imagining of beloved film

Legions of Ghibli fanatics may love the heartwarming My Neighbour Totoro and the heartbreaking Grave of the Fireflies, but they revere Spirited Away, their, our, The Godfather and The Wizard of Oz rolled into one. Totoro has been magnificently...

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Jenůfa, English National Opera review - searing new cast in precise revival

Face scarred, baby murdered – both crimes committed by those closest to her – village girl Jenůfa rises again with extraordinary strength of will. Of all affirmative endings in opera, Janáček’s has to be the most moving, and all the more so in this...

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The Handmaid's Tale, English National Opera review - last chance saloon for sub-Atwood baggy monster

Never underestimate the enduring power of a great story over an unwieldy operatic setting. Few of us who saw the first ENO production of The Handmaid’s Tale back in 2003 thought the work stood much chance of revival. Yet Margaret Atwood’s dystopian...

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Giselle, English National Ballet, Coliseum review - if you go down to the woods today, beware of the Wilis

We’re used to the idea of 19th century ballets being updated, but the Giselle currently presented by English National Ballet takes it the other way.This production, itself more than 50 years old, offers the closest possible experience of a Romantic...

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The Mongol Khan, London Coliseum review - unique operatic spectacle utterly overwhelms flaws in pacing and story

“But that’s what they’re paying for!” replied my son as we, a little shellshocked by the previous three hours, skirted Trafalgar Square on the way home. I had reservations about some key components of the alchemy that produces great theatre, but...

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Iolanthe, English National Opera review - still gorgeous but ever so slightly less funny than before

Parliament may be topsy-turvy, with a motley bunch of Lords the only hope in vetoing outrageous bills, but up the road at the London Coliseum a more disciplined company is steering a luxury liner with perfect craft. Cal McCrystal’s best G&S so...

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Peter Grimes, English National Opera review - not quite the pity or the truth

Britten’s biggest cornucopia of invention seems unsinkable, and no-one seeing his breakthrough 1945 opera for the first time in this revival will fail to register its forceful genius. David Alden’s expressionist nightmare of a production, though,...

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We Will Rock You, London Coliseum review - the Queen musical returns, as ludicrous, dense and dreadful as before

Twenty-one years ago, critics were alarmed by Ben Elton’s deranged musical We Will Rock You. But, despite the "staggeringly awful" reviews, the show somehow went on to have 12 long (and painful) years of West End success. So, here we are again. The...

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