Switzerland
theartsdesk at the Verbier Festival 2016Sunday, 07 August 2016
Idyllic setting, star-rated musicians, the sense of an occasion. Verbier so wholly fulfils the clichés of an international music festival that to the cynical it can seem complacent or arrogant in doing so. To the uninitiated – and this was my first... Read more... |
Digital demands: time for artists to speak up?Wednesday, 11 May 2016
Galloping technological change, collapsing incomes and a climate of violence facilitated by anonymity are just a few of the challenges facing creative artists in today's digitally driven world. What can be done to put all this right? The man to ask... Read more... |
DVD: Story of My DeathTuesday, 07 July 2015
Since his debut Honour of the Knights back in 2006 Catalan director Albert Serra has carved out a niche for himself, creating cinema that is frequently oblique and visually engrossing. Story of My Death (Història de la meva mort), which won the... Read more... |
Guillaume Tell, Royal OperaTuesday, 30 June 2015
There are two operatic types who should leave Rossini’s epic swansong for the stage well alone. One would usually be a conductor who ignores many of the notes written by a master at the height of his powers, since even the least dramatic numbers... Read more... |
CD: Sophie Hunger – SupermoonMonday, 18 May 2015
Any album with a guest appearance from Eric Cantona is going to attract attention. The eighth track of Sophie Hunger’s Supermoon, “La Chanson d’Hélène”, is a sumptuous, string-infused reflection on identity with Serge Gainsbourg-style spoken... Read more... |
King Size, Theater Basel, Linbury Studio TheatreWednesday, 15 April 2015
A journey into dreams through songs from Dowland to The Kinks; a Swiss director who, Covent Garden’s Director of Opera Kasper Holten assures us, is “one of the most important European theatre artists”; a Norwegian chanteuse who, I assure you, is a... Read more... |
CD: VEIN feat. Dave Liebman - Jazz TalksWednesday, 08 April 2015
The Vein Trio craves the horn. Though a complete and expressive unit in itself, with Swiss brothers Florian and Michael Arbenz on drums and piano respectively, and Thomas Lähns on bass, they’ve been working with a new saxophonist each season. Last... Read more... |
The CircleFriday, 12 December 2014
Remembering the early years of social and sexual liberation in Swiss gay life, Stefan Haupt’s drama-documentary The Circle (Der Kreis) has rich affection for its subject. In particular, that’s the relationship between teacher Ernst Ostertag and drag... Read more... |
William Tell, Welsh National OperaSaturday, 13 September 2014
A few months ago, while looking something up about Liszt’s piano piece “Chapelle de Guillaume Tell,” I discovered to my horror that William Tell – like Robin Hood – may never have existed. Even the apple, like the one in Genesis (there is no apple... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Verbier: Festival with FireworksSunday, 17 August 2014
Mahler’s Sixth Symphony is dominated by the doleful clang of cowbells. They are an other-worldly intrusion into an otherwise familiar musical scene – unless you happen to be in Verbier, that is, in which case they are just another everyday part of... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Basel: More than MinimalismSunday, 20 April 2014
In a near-perfect, outward-looking Swiss city sharing borders with France and Germany, on a series of cloudless April days that felt more like balmy June than capricious April, anything seemed possible. The doors of perception which had slammed, I... Read more... |
Berlinale 2014: The Circle, Love Is Strange, Land of Storms, Praia do FuturoSunday, 16 February 2014
Back in the 1950s the Zurich underground club Der Kreis was a rare beacon of tolerance of homosexuality in Europe. Fitting then that Swiss director Stefan Haupt’s drama-documentary of the same name, The Circle (****), won this year’s Teddy award at... Read more... |
