Spain
Sleep TightThursday, 28 February 2013
When Cesar (Luis Tosar) sees Clara (Marta Etura) leave for work in the mornings, he wants to wipe the smile from her face. And as the barely noticed caretaker of her Barcelona apartment building, he’s in the perfect position to do so. Cesar is a... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Marcos Valle, Five Star, Julian Cope, Carlos NúñezSunday, 03 February 2013
Marcos Valle: Marcos Valle/Garra/Vento Sul/Previsão do TempoIn 1968, having already done time in Sérgio Mendes & Brazil 66, Marcos Valle was selling bossa nova and samba to America, appearing on The Andy Williams Show in a blazer and roll... Read more... |
Mørk, LPO, Nézet-Séguin, Royal Festival HallThursday, 22 November 2012
Mozart and Wagner were the opposite compass points of Richard Strauss’s classical-romantic adventuring, and Amadeus has often made an airy companion to the rangy orchestral tone poems in the concert hall. By choosing Haydn instead as the clean... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Haydn, Mozart, Xavier Montsalvatge, Daniel PropperSaturday, 03 November 2012
Xavier Montsalvatge: Orchestral works BBC Philharmonic/Juanjo Mena (Chandos)Xavier Montsalvatge (1912-2002) was a Catalan composer who remained true to his regional roots, resisting any stereotypical notions of what Spanish music was supposed... Read more... |
Horror Europa with Mark Gatiss, BBC FourWednesday, 31 October 2012
With Horror Europa, Mark Gatiss provided further confirmation that he’s now one the most astute, likeable and measured figures contributing to our current cultural landscape. His approach is entirely personal, but never derailed by unfettered... Read more... |
Damned by Despair, National TheatreThursday, 11 October 2012
Spain's Golden Age turns unaccountably to dross in Damned by Despair, the Tirso de Molina play that is a good half-hour shorter than the running time given in the programme but won't (in this production, anyway) ever be brief enough for some.... Read more... |
Renaissance to Goya: Prints and Drawings from Spain, British MuseumFriday, 21 September 2012
Alonso Berruguete, Vicente Carducho, Juan Antonio Conchillos y Falco and Pedro Machuca are hardly familiar names in the Anglophone art world, but their drawings are on view in a revelatory exhibition. The British Museum is showing nearly all its... Read more... |
Interview: Carlos Saura, Flamenco filmmakerMonday, 28 May 2012
Carlos Saura is 80, though he looks 60. With a lived-in face and straggly grey hair, he resembles a rebel professor on a 1970s campus. He’s garrulous and speaks a rolling, recklessly elided Spanish. He’s had seven children by four women, one of them... Read more... |
CD: Santiago Latorre - EcliptícaWednesday, 22 February 2012
There's a whole world of music out there that floats in the zone somewhere between jazz, club music, sound art, contemporary classical and meditative new age background sound – so much of it that it all too easily blurs together. But there are... Read more... |
Fuenteovejuna, Antonio Gades Company, Sadler's WellsWednesday, 15 February 2012
Flamenco is a fervently political dance language, riddled with subversion of class and gender rankings, honouring old people, hallowing sexual prowess, relishing mavericks, and yet commanding a special symbolic force when it's disciplined into a... Read more... |
From Foot to Foot, How Rhythm Travelled the WorldSunday, 05 February 2012
Two hundred years ago in Durham taverns you could find men in wooden clogs clattering on the tables, with their mates pressing their ears to the underside of the surface. Meanwhile, at the other end of the world, African slaves with bare feet were... Read more... |
The House of Bernarda Alba, Almeida TheatreSaturday, 28 January 2012
No one can exactly accuse Federico Garcia Lorca's 1936 play of falling into neglect. From Howard Davies's National Theatre revival to this latest reclamation by the Almeida, The House of Bernarda Alba has received six separate airings in (or near)... Read more... |
