Buzz
David Nice
Hot on the heels of our feature celebrating 25 years of Jonathan Miller's Mikado at English National Opera, the latest revival of which opens tonight, veteran Savoyard Richard Suart sent through the most recent candidates for the Lord High Executioner's chop as he will be delivering them onstage (with no doubt a twist or two as the run proceeds).Understandably he didn't want me to spill all the beans, but gave his gracious consent to the preview of a few victims in the latest of his now celebrated spins on Gilbert's lyrics. They include - no prizes for having guessed this one -
The Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Horror and dismay have greeted BBC One controller Danny Cohen’s decision to axe detective drama series Zen, after the network aired a solitary three-part series in January which pulled a very respectable 5.7m viewers per episode. Shot amid succulent Italian locations in Rome and the surrounding countryside, Zen won plaudits for Rufus Sewell’s performance in the title role (and it appeared that Sewell in a range of stylish Italian suits exerted an aphrodisiac effect on a sizeable number of viewers), while his leading lady and former Bond girl Caterina Murino lent an aura of Italian Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Hot on the heels of the Pet Shop Boys’ foray into ballet for Sadler’s Wells next month, it’s revealed that Sir Paul McCartney has composed a ballet for New York City Ballet, a love story called Ocean’s Kingdom.Scheduled to premiere on 22 September, the four-act ballet so far has 45 minutes of music, and a cast of around 40. The New York Times reports that the first act is having its first run-through next Thursday at the Lincoln Center, NYCB’s home stage.The world premiere will be half of a gala programme including George Balanchine’s Union Jack, as a compliment to Sir Paul’s Britishness. Read more ...
alice.vincent
Taxidermy – the rather morbid art of stuffing and mounting dead animals – has witnessed a rise in popularity not seen since its Victorian heyday in the last few years. Vintage dead artefacts are being given an afterlife in trendy lounge bars all over east London, while taxidermist Polly Morgan has enjoyed further fame after her first major exhibition last summer. However, few have attempted to bring the scalpel to the stage as well as Charlie Tuesday Gates.Gates, a Camberwell graduate, branched into her own D.I.Y taxidermy thanks to a countryside upbringing and easy access to found ( Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Every now and then an idea comes along so perfectly formed that you think, “I wish I’d thought of that.” And so it is with The London Chat Show, one of the many exciting projects being developed by young urban arts professionals who come into the industry at a time when public funding continues to dwindle and major arts venues play increasingly safe with their programming. These self-starting individuals deserve not a little admiration and a lot of support as they keep live performance going, often on a shoestring and giving all profits to charity.The London Chat Show is the brainchild of Read more ...
Ismene Brown
The Bolshoi Ballet’s prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharova gave birth in Moscow yesterday to a baby girl, the child of the celebrated violinist Vadim Repin. Weighing 3.1 kilograms, the baby is named Anna.Zakharova, 31, a former star at the Mariinsky Ballet, St Petersburg, before she moved to the Bolshoi, is in good health and planning to perform in London in May, her agent told the Russian news agency Novosti.
Last summer the willowy star, who is also a member of the Russian Parliament, pulled out of the Bolshoi’s Covent Garden tour at the last minute pleading a hip injury, though it became Read more ...
fisun.guner
We usually leave art award controversies to the Turner Prize at Tate Britain. So it’s a surprise to hear that the National Portrait Gallery has stepped up to the plate with their annual Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. And if you’ve already seen the exhibition, we’re not talking about any eyebrows that might have been raised over second prize-winner Panayiotis Lamprou’s rather revealing portrait of his young wife.The gallery, which houses royal portraits from the earliest Tudors to Princes William and Harry, as well as photographs and paintings of more recent public figures and Read more ...
hilary.whitney
A burgeoning North London art scene, which includes the Zabludowicz Collection in Chalk Farm and one of the London outposts of the Gagosian Gallery, suggests that the art world has the North firmly in its sights and tomorrow sees the opening of its latest addition, Cob Studios & Gallery, based in the heart of Camden Town. Cob is jointly run by playwright Polly Stenham and Victoria Williams and aims to be a truly collaborative venue exhibiting work by emerging and established artists and comprising a large ground-floor gallery, a communal first-floor studio with enough space for four Read more ...
David Nice
Rumour has it that Snoop Dogg may be serenading the royals there in a couple of months' time, but this afternoon it was the most agile, even and full soprano voice of all which rang from the vaulting of Westminster Abbey. Thanks to the noble co-operation of the Royal Opera House - serving up its orchestra and music director, Antonio Pappano - the Australian High Commission and the Australian Music Foundation, we celebrated the life and works of Dame Joan Sutherland in the high, orchestrated style which only this kind of event could have done full justice.She WAS the Bright Seraphim of Handel' Read more ...
Russ Coffey
To mark the release of their new single "Dilly" theartsdesk has limited-edition box sets of Band of Horses album Infinite Arms to give away. The box sets have a CD version, a vinyl version and artwork unique to the set. All potential winners have to do is to answer the four questions below, and just to make it easy the answers will be found by following the embedded links.
Band of Horses' latest album is called Infinite Arms, but what is the first song on the album?
Band of Horses' lead singer Ben Bridwell is sometimes compared to Neil Young. What was the title of the last Neil Young album? Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Tim Buckley might have died in 1975, but he’s lived on through re-evaluations, reissues and, by default, through the music of his also-dead son Jeff. This new Rhino Handmade version of Buckley senior’s debut Elektra album is significant as the second disc collects never-before-heard recordings by his first band, The Bohemians, and a set of pre-Elektra demos.There’s been a steady dribble of Buckley archive releases, but apart from the long-gone Works in Progress (also on Rhino Handmade) and The Dream Belongs to Me: Rarities & Unreleased 1968-1973 (which reissued some of the Works in Read more ...
josh.spero
Some of London's most public, but probably least noticed, art is under threat: part of Eduardo Paolozzi's technicolour mosaics throughout Tottenham Court Road Tube station may have to be removed because of the station's massive Crossrail-led expansion.As the Evening Standard notes, "The work will involve the loss of some tiles that make up arguably the most stunning artwork on the Underground - the coloured mosaics by the late Scottish artist Sir Eduardo Paolozzi." There are bright saxophones and birds and coloured lines running amok, Pop Art dynamism in London's dynamic transportation Read more ...