Spain
Classical CDs Weekly: Alnæs, Granados, Kelly, MompouSaturday, 25 March 2017
Eyvind Alnæs: Piano Concerto & Symphony Håvard Gimse (piano), Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra/Eivind Aadland (Lawo Classics)Eyvind Alnæs’s C Minor Symphony, written in 1897 after his return to Norway from studying in Leipzig, hints at great things,... Read more... |
FLA.CO.MEN, Israel Galván, Sadler's WellsSaturday, 18 February 2017
Before this Sadler's Wells Flamenco Festival-opening performance of Israel Galván's show FLA.CO.MEN, my guest wanted to know what the show would be like. And if I struggled lamely for words in response, it wasn't because I thought it would be... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: El SurFriday, 27 January 2017
Victor Erice is one of the great Spanish directors of the last century, though much less prolific than his compatriots Buñuel and Almodóvar. There are three key films, The Spirit of the Beehive, The Quince Tree Sun and El Sur (The South). All... Read more... |
DVD: Ma MaTuesday, 15 November 2016
Penélope Cruz has rarely been better, though her director Julio Medem has seldom been worse. As Magda, she’s an earthy everywoman, whether dealing with an errant husband, protecting her son Dani, or treating breast cancer with wry stoicism. It... Read more... |
DVD: Stella CadenteTuesday, 08 November 2016
This tragicomic romp is loosely based on a bizarre footnote in Spanish history. The Italian Duke Amadeo was offered the throne after the previous occupant’s violent overthrow. But when the kingmaker who invited him was assassinated just before his... Read more... |
Don Giovanni, English National OperaSaturday, 01 October 2016
Pace-perfect musical articulation and meaningful surprises in the direction: both were to be expected after the conductor-generated sludge and the production overkill of the new Royal Opera Così fan tutte. Mark Wigglesworth has form in Mozart at ENO... Read more... |
Two Quixotes, The English Concert, Bicket, Wigmore HallThursday, 15 September 2016
They dreamed the impossible dream in 1970, turning aspects of Cervantes' Don Quixote into the musical Man of La Mancha. But Purcell, Eccles and the lively dramatist Thomas D'Urfey - anyone know his hit song "The Fart"? - got there first nearly 300... Read more... |
JulietaThursday, 25 August 2016
Red, the colour of blood, passion, love and hate, is Almodóvar’s trademark and in Julieta, his 20th film (and surely one of his most visually lustrous), it’s never far away. It’s there in the opening sequence, a close-up of thick folds of red fabric... Read more... |
Almodóvar's WomenFriday, 05 August 2016
“A woman’s brain is a mystery,” explains one man to another in Pedro Almodóvar’s Talk to Her. “You have to pay attention to women. Be thoughtful occasionally. Caress them. Remember they exist, they’re alive and they matter to us.” They matter to no... Read more... |
Don Quixote, Bolshoi Ballet, Royal Opera HouseTuesday, 26 July 2016
Exactly 60 years have passed since this company made its first London visit, an unlikely triumph of art over geopolitics. For 1956 was the year Britain was rocked by the Suez crisis and the year the Soviet Union invaded Hungary. British spies... Read more... |
Il Trovatore, Royal OperaWednesday, 06 July 2016
That often-repeated truism about Verdi's craziest melodrama, that it needs four of the world's greatest voices, makes no mention of acting ability. Given the top-notch international approach to this kind of opera, impressively fielded by what's... Read more... |
Le Nozze di Figaro, Longborough Festival OperaMonday, 27 June 2016
“It doesn’t need me,” Sebastian Thomas writes in this season’s Longborough programme, “to labour the idea that the content of a theatrical or musical piece should find some relevance to our own lives.” No, indeed. Practically every director one... Read more... |
