Russia
Q&A Special: Pianist Barry DouglasTuesday, 13 September 2011
The Russians have always been particularly picky about the playing of the piano. Chief among the piano gods on the 20th century’s pantheon are Richter, Gilels, Horowitz - and even now names such as Ashkenazy, Kissin, Sokolov still elbow out many of... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Brahms, Desyatnikov, Glière, TchaikovskyFriday, 02 September 2011
We head east this week - new pieces by a contemporary Russian composer, and a bargain box set showcasing the flamboyant orchestral music of a neglected Russian. And a famous viola player leads a young Moscow orchestra in electrifying accounts of... Read more... |
Die Frau ohne Schatten, Mariinsky Opera, Gergiev, Edinburgh Festival TheatreFriday, 02 September 2011
Under Western eyes, Gergiev’s Mariinsky forces had been turning to stone – like the titular shadowless woman's solipsistic husband in Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s polyphonic fairy tale – each time they stepped outside the Russian... Read more... |
DVD: The Colour of PomegranatesThursday, 01 September 2011
A master of visual cinema, primus inter pares, Sergei Paradjanov was a law unto himself in Soviet cinema of the 1960-1980s; his body of work from the Caucasus in that period is as visually innovative and brightly colourful as anything in cinema. A “... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Conductor Vladimir JurowskiTuesday, 30 August 2011
Born in Russia in 1972, the London Philharmonic Orchestra's principal conductor has galvanised the capital's music scene with some of the most thoughtful, groundbreaking and carefully prepared concert programmes today. His operatic credentials at... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Batiashvili, Philharmonia Orchestra, SalonenWednesday, 17 August 2011
An all-Russian prom with two masterpieces centre stage and a remarkably compelling young violin artist brought in a packed house last night. Esa-Pekka Salonen and Lisa Batiashvili have already recorded Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto, and the... Read more... |
La Bayadère, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera HouseSunday, 14 August 2011
The bayadere bears on her shoulder a vase of holy water, and the story of the ballet La bayadère is of her refusal to compromise. She could better her life in two political deals: become the high priest’s mistress, or later, when bitten by a... Read more... |
Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera House: The HighlightsSunday, 14 August 2011
The Mariinsky Ballet has just completed a three-week season, with terrific highs (and the odd low). This was the 50th anniversary of the Mariinsky's (then Kirov's) first London visit, in 1961, and it is worth highlighting the role impresarios Victor... Read more... |
Anna Karenina, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera HouseWednesday, 10 August 2011
It is claimed that the philosopher GE Moore had a fantasy. After many years’ work, Tolstoy had finally finished War and Peace. Sonya had copied it out for the umpteenth time. The thing goes off to the printer. Peace reigns. And then, in... Read more... |
Don Quixote, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera HouseTuesday, 02 August 2011
It is all too easy to be cynical about the ballet version of Don Quixote. With almost no part for the title character, it is a 19th-century Russian take on faux-Spanish dancing, a farce in which the barber Basilio longs for the charming Kitri, while... Read more... |
Homage to Fokine, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera HouseSaturday, 30 July 2011
Mikhail Fokine, choreographer to both West and East, looked forward and back, too. He studied in the old Imperial Theatre School when the tsars ruled Russia, and he was also Diaghilev’s creative genius at the Ballets Russes, moving dance into the... Read more... |
Yevgeny Sudbin, Wigmore HallFriday, 29 July 2011
Older pianomanes may lament the passing of the great Russian schooling that gave us the likes of Sofronitsky, Yudina and Richter. I'm not so sure. The younger generations may have dropped the mystic torch, but their more even-tempered approach can... Read more... |
