Prague
Blu-ray: The Cassandra CatSaturday, 04 March 2023
As films involving cats go, The Cassandra Cat (Až přijde kocour) is up there with the best. Part fairy-tale, part political satire, Vojtěch Jasný’s 1963 fantasy, shot on location in the picturesque village of Telcis, is an offbeat, unclassifiable... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Cymbals, monsters and Morse codeSaturday, 25 February 2023
Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Paavo Järvi (Alpha)Parsifal Suite London Philharmonic Orchestra/Andrew Gourlay (Orchid Classics)There are many things to like about this sleek performance of Bruckner 7. The playing of the... Read more... |
The Makropulos Affair, Welsh National Opera review - complexity realised brilliantly on the stageSaturday, 17 September 2022
What, anyway, is The Makropulos Case all about? Is it simply about the horrors of unnatural longevity; or does it expose the limitations of the rational mind confronted by the irrational; is it about love of a distorted ideal, like some updated... Read more... |
The Excursions of Mr Brouček, Grange Park Opera review - biting satire from bouncing CzechsFriday, 10 June 2022
Now for something completely different. The Excursions of Mr Brouček is Leos Janáček’s least typical opera and is rarely performed. Among his tragic tales such as Jenufa and Kat’a Kabanova, the charm of The Cunning Little Vixen and the strangely... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Coach to ViennaFriday, 25 March 2022
As a title, Coach to Vienna suggests an opulent Boule de Suif-like drama directed by Max Ophüls and starring the likes of Danielle Darrieux and Michel Simon. But Karel Kachyňa’s film is no Viennese waltz. It’s a bleak end-of-World War II drama in... Read more... |
CBSO Chorus, Czech Philharmonic, Bychkov, Barbican review - a mass of lifeThursday, 17 March 2022
One of the world’s top five orchestras – sorry, but I locate them all in continental Europe – played on the second night of its London visit to a half-empty Barbican Hall. Half-full, rather, attentive and ecstatic. As for the much-criticised venue,... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Fifth Horseman is FearTuesday, 07 September 2021
One of several 1960s Czech films which explicitly addresses the Holocaust, Zbyněk Brynych’s 1964 thriller The Fifth Horseman is Fear ( …a pátý jezdec je starch) wrong-foots us from the first frame. There’s Jiří Sternwald’s jagged, brittle score, and... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Solo harp, solo trumpet and two discs of orchestral jazzSaturday, 03 July 2021
Reicha Rediscovered, Volume 3 Ivan Ilić (piano) (Chandos)Antoine Reicha’s L’Arte de varier tantalises before you’ve heard a note; the composer’s Opus 57, its theme followed by 57 variations. Reicha was an exact contemporary of Beethoven and... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with TeaTuesday, 02 March 2021
Jindřich Polák ’s 1963 film Ikarie XB-1 (also available from distributor Second Run) still seems fresh, a cerebral, visually arresting sci-fi which clearly influenced 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s surprising to read that Polák was actually a comedy... Read more... |
Má Vlast, Czech Philharmonic, Bychkov online review – finest silk for Velvet Revolution anniversary concertSaturday, 21 November 2020
It was Mahler as conductor who made the famous declaration that “Tradition ist Schlamperei” (sloppiness), or something along those lines. Where it becomes the opposite of sloppiness is when a national treasure in the lifeblood of Czech musicians... Read more... |
Czech Philharmonic Benefit Concert online review – profound musicianship in sombre masked fundraiserWednesday, 01 April 2020
Less than six months ago Prague’s most prestigious concert hall, the neo-Renaissance Rudolfinum, was all glittering lights and packed, smartly dressed audience for the Czech Philharmonic’s hot ticket first performance there for 49 years of its... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Valerie and Her Week of WondersSunday, 01 March 2020
Jaromil Jireš’s Valerie and Her Week of Wonders contains many mysteries, the main one being exactly how such a strange and subversive film could have been released in 1970, so soon after the Prague Spring. That the author on whose 1935 novel the... Read more... |
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