Russia
theartsdesk in Perm: To Russia With RomeoSunday, 09 June 2013
If you look at a map of Russia, you will find the city of Perm just west of the spine of the Ural Mountains which divides European Russia from Asia, about 720 miles north-east of Moscow. Just under two hours away by plane, you only understand the... Read more... |
The Tiger Lillies, Southbank CentreSaturday, 08 June 2013
The last two years have seen the Tiger Lillies hit a prolific peak of activity, to be found as often on the theatrical as the concert stage, drawing on plenty of influences from outside the UK to boot. Mike Pickering came on board last year in place... Read more... |
Elisabeth Leonskaja, Queen Elizabeth HallThursday, 06 June 2013
On most of her London visits, Elisabeth Leonskaja has been an unassuming high priestess of the mysteries and depths in core sonatas by Beethoven, Chopin and Schubert. This time she applied her Russian-school style of orchestral pianism, tempered as... Read more... |
Metro: Last LightFriday, 24 May 2013
Man is, of course, the worst monster of all in this bleak, post-apocalyptic first-person shooter based on the best-selling "Metro" novels of Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. In Metro: Last Light, the last few of mankind are bunkered down in the old... Read more... |
The StokerFriday, 17 May 2013
Where there’s a stoker there must be a furnace, and this being Russian director Alexei Balabanov’s latest story from St Petersburg’s gangster 1990s, as well as heating some snow-bound Soviet industrial hulks, its flames also conveniently consume... Read more... |
DVD: White TigerTuesday, 07 May 2013
Russian director Karen Shakhnazarov has three decades of memorable film-making behind him, but remains much less known than he should be, at least in the English-speaking world: his edgy perestroika-era films like Courier and Assassin of the Tsar... Read more... |
Monteverdi Choir, London Symphony Orchestra, Gardiner, Barbican HallFriday, 26 April 2013
Backed up by reasonably adventurous orchestral programming, lucky conductors can forge a strong Stravinsky evening by picking and mixing from his five ancient Greek rituals. Sir John Eliot Gardiner, unintentionally homaging the late Sir Colin Davis... Read more... |
Children of the Sun, National TheatreWednesday, 17 April 2013
They’re back, and this time it’s Gorky. Dream team director Howard Davies, translator Andrew Upton, designer Bunny Christie and lighting designer Neil Austin have repeatedly attached tragicomic jump-leads to the unfamiliar (Bulgakov’s The White... Read more... |
Bolshoi full casting up as box office opensSaturday, 06 April 2013
General booking for the Bolshoi Ballet's Covent Garden season this summer opens on Tuesday (9 April), and the company has at last announced its intended casting. However, it should always be borne in mind that, as Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte... Read more... |
Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: The Happiest Man, Ambika P3Sunday, 31 March 2013
Ambika P3 is a windowless, cavernous basement once used to test concrete for huge building projects – the Channel Tunnel among them – now ingeniously recycled as a kunsthalle gallery / performance space. Thus it is strikingly appropriate for... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Moscow: Sergei Polunin triumphs in MayerlingMonday, 25 March 2013
Quite simply, the performance was one of those rarest of events in the theatre that will be talked about for generations - the Russian premiere of Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling, with the former Royal Ballet star Sergei Polunin making his debut... Read more... |
Treasures of the Royal Courts: Tudors, Stuarts and the Russian Tsars, Victoria & Albert MuseumSunday, 10 March 2013
Jewels, gold, silver, arms and armour, silks, embroideries, tapestries and lace: the world of the very rich and very powerful royals – and merchants – in Russia and Britain half a millennia ago is set out in glittering array in the V&A’s latest... Read more... |
