Features
David Nice
Out of a silent and empty City of London, unusually still even for a Sunday afternoon, it felt surreal to come upon a centre of light and activity. Raffaello Morales, Renaissance man, conductor of the Fidelio Orchestra and owner/impresario of its eponymous café which has played host to great performances over the past month, had mustered 23 of the finest London-based players to tackle the ultimate in works for string orchestra. Richard Strauss penned his Metamorphosen in grief at the bombings of the great German and Austrian opera houses. It ends with a direct quotation of the music which Read more ...
Matt Wolf
After a weeklong hiatus due to an absence of noteworthy material, this column is back heralding the return, as well, of something resembling live theatre. Okay, so the Simon Stephens premiere Blindness at the Donmar doesn't actually feature actors in the flesh, and we've had word just last yesterday that illness has delayed Andrew Scott's live-stream performance from the Old Vic. But there's still Fanny and Stella alfresco in a south London beer garden to welcome playgoers back into the fold, whilst online offerings range from a near-ubiquitous Miriam Margolyes in a 20-minute premiere to the Read more ...
Kelton Koch
Joining the Vienna Philharmonic as a student and young professional was an absolute thrill. I had begun to play with the orchestra as an academist in October 2019 and as a full-time member in the Opera in January 2020. I was experiencing many “firsts”: concerts in the Musikverein [Vienna’s magnificent number one concert hall], first tour in Asia, first Vienna Philharmonic Ball and Vienna State Opera Ball. I was anticipating many other “firsts”: Wagner’s Ring Cycle and a European tour with Zubin Mehta, all abruptly interrupted by the sudden spread of COVID-19 into Austria.Of course, it goes Read more ...
Antonia Bain
The Narcissistic Fish is a brand new opera specifically created to be filmed. Set in Leith and written in Scots, it tells the story of restaurant owner and chef, Angus, and his brother Kai who are arguing over the death of their father, while the talented Belle struggles to carry on underpaid and under-appreciated.I was an opera novice when I started working at Scottish Opera as their first digital content producer in 2015. I had no idea what to expect when I saw my first opera but was completely hooked on the art form especially after seeing the company’s production of Rusalka directed by Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Theatres will begin gently unlocking their doors as we head into August. In the meantime, a beleaguered community continues to find fresh and startling ways to sustain interest and excitement, whether that be the premiere of a new play starring Andrew Scott at the Old Vic or a pictorial tour round long-shuttered playhouses from the photographer Helen Murray. The American composer Jason Robert Brown is back on view yet again, this time with a revival of his earliest show as performed by a high-voltage musical theatre cast, and one of the most celebrated theatres in the world livestreams a show Read more ...
Ismene Brown
"You talk like Marlene Dietrich, you dance like Zizi Jeanmaire, your clothes are all made by Balmain, and there’s diamonds and pearls in your hair…" . Peter Sarstedt may have been a one-hit wonder, but his 1969 pop song, "Where do you go to (my lovely)?" passed into British popular culture in a flash, even if many of its chic references were lost on future generations. Zizi Jeanmaire, who died last Friday aged 96, personified the Paris of the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and beyond.In her cabaret shows, the pixie-ish little figure with boy-cut black hair and fabulous legs would twerk with Read more ...
Christopher Glynn
An invitation: come to the Ryedale Festival. It's never been easier. All you need is a screen and an internet connection. Because our festival, along with others up and down the land, is waiting in the wings, ready (just) to step out for the first time onto a digital platform.Live music in beautiful Ryedale locations has been a rite of summer in North Yorkshire for decades. Thanks to an inspiring array of venues (from Castle Howard (pictured below) to an ancient moorland chapel) and a dedicated band of supporters and followers, the festival has grown to the point where it sells around 10,000 Read more ...
Matt Wolf
We're easing out of lockdown, haircuts are being had, and the theatre continually shape-shifts to accommodate these changing times. All credit to the 14 writers who have conjoined forces in urgency and haste to create 846, a collection of audio plays responding to the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. National Theatre at Home goes out on a real high with its transformative production of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus, with Lucian Msamati inheriting a role previously played by Ian McKellen on Broadway and F Murray Abraham onscreen. And the time is always right to hear Audra Read more ...
Diana Salazar
I wasn’t the only one who felt emotional when I left our beautiful building in South Kensington for the last time before lockdown. By that stage in mid-March the corridors had become quiet. The sense of loss was palpable: no concerts, no playing together, no conversation, no sound. The silencing of the College felt all the more crushing with our new £40m building development so tantalisingly close to completion.In the weeks that followed it was tempting to dwell on what we couldn’t do. Our student performers, composers, conductors, music educators and performance scientists thrive in a Read more ...
graham.rickson
Horn player Sarah Willis joined the Berlin Philharmonic in 2001. She juggles her position with spells of teaching, interviewing soloists and conductors for the Berlin Philharmonic's Digital Concert Hall and hosting an online series of Horn Hangouts, interviews with musicians streamed live on her website and archived on YouTube. Willis's new album, Mozart y Mambo, is an exuberant blend of solo horn pieces by Mozart with traditional Cuban music. Recorded in Havana in January 2020, a percentage of the album’s proceeds will go towards buying instruments for the musicians of the Havana Lyceum Read more ...
Theatre Lockdown Special 13: Early Lloyd Webber, vintage Rattigan, and a Dame or two in conversation
Matt Wolf
Stop the presses! For the first time in nearly four months, The Arts Desk can point to the first of several live theatre events amongst the highlights of the coming week: the tour across the nation's car parks to multiple drive-in audiences of Horrible Histories: Barmy Britain, a previous West End mainstay that has adapted with these strange times. Those preferring simply to stay put will be rewarded with a typically motley array of theatre fare, ranging from an ageless Donny Osmond as Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's often scantily clad Joseph and the Medea story repositioned once again to Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
Ennio Morricone was a genius, or as close to that description as makes no odds. If we mean someone who created a unique body of work, one that changed culture, had a distincive style and was massively influential, then Morricone fitted the bill. theartsdesk's Joe Muggs was discussing today on Facebook and Mixmag his influence on dubstep and Jamaican music, for example. He was uncompromising, never learning English or moving to Hollywood, however much he was cajoled by film types there.It appears he saw his non-film music as the serious work and posterity will no doubt give the verdict on that Read more ...