fairytales
David Nice
"You have to start somewhere," Debussy is reported to have said at the 1910 premiere of The Firebird. Which, at least, is a very good "somewhere" for Stravinsky, shot through with flashes of the personality to come. The Symphony in E flat of two years earlier, however, is little more than a theme park of all the ingredients amassed in Russian music since Glinka forged its identity less than a century earlier. It's fun to have on CD - and to play the opening in a "guess the composer" quiz (the reasonable answer would be Glazunov). To work in concert, it needs companions with more than the Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
The unifying theme of this new Coliseum double bill is death, but don’t let that put you off. Kenneth MacMillan’s Song of the Earth and August Bournonville’s La Sylphide may seem like odd bedfellows, but both are a great deal more uplifting than their plot summaries might suggest, and in the hands of English National Ballet the evening is joyous, even life-affirming.MacMillan’s Song of the Earth was acquired by the company for its part in the national MacMillan anniversary celebrations last October, and they look at home in it already. Song’s combination of sincerity and levity is a natural Read more ...
Robert Beale
The Royal Northern College of Music’s production of Massenet’s Cendrillon has a particularly strong professional production team, and it shows. This is one of the most attractively spectacular operas the college has mounted for years.Director Olivia Fuchs and designer Yannis Thavoris stage the story in Versailles (the Hall of Mirrors, in particular) in the era of Louis XIV, and the set makes a wall of two-way mirrors its abiding theme, providing not only for impressive visual effects but also an easy and symbolic transition from the home of Cendrillon and her nasty step-mother and sisters to Read more ...
Katherine Waters
The familiar doesn’t have to get old. Last night at the Coliseum there were children in the boxes, adults in the circle and grandparents in the stalls. Seasonal favourite Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker brings all ages to the ballet — as well as each audience member's inner child, and this year's revival by English National Ballet is no exception.The magic begins with Peter Farmer’s designs. Snow falls in gusts as guests arrive to the party by skating across a frozen lake; the interior of the house is festooned with lavish drapery which makes the most of the space’s depth and later warps Read more ...
theartsdesk
Summer's here, which can only mean Hollywood blockbusters. But it's not all Spider-Man, talking apes and World War Two with platoons of thespians fighting on the beaches. There's comedy, a saucy menage-à-trois, a film about golf and even a ghost story. It's called A Ghost Story. We hereby bring you sneak peeks of the season's finest and more titles anticipated in the autumn (and hey, the trailer might even be the best part).AUGUSTThe Odyssey. Director: Jérôme Salle, starring Lambert Wilson, Pierre Niney and Audrey Tautou. Jacques Cousteau: le movie. Released 18 AugFinal Portrait. Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It's not often you hear the sound of film critics sobbing quietly to themselves, but this really happened at the screening I attended of A Monster Calls. Having seen the trailer, with its scenes of a giant tree stomping around a spooky-looking rural landscape, I'd marked it down as one to avoid. How wrong can you be.In conjunction with screenwriter Patrick Ness, who also wrote the original novel, director JA Bayona (known for the scary The Orphanage and the tsunami saga The Impossible) has conjured a bittersweet and often painfully moving account of bereavement and growing up, in which Read more ...
graham.rickson
Not quite three wishes; this film’s Czech title is Tři oříšky pro Popelku, which translates as three nuts. We’ll get to that later. Three Wishes for Cinderella, a Czechoslovak-East German co-production from 1973, is a treat, and still an annual Christmas fixture on Eastern European TV screens.Director Václav Vorlíček’s source material wasn’t the familiar Cinderella retelling by Charles Perrault, but a darker version written by the 19th century Czech folklorist Božena Němcová. There’s no father, only one nasty step-sister and a refreshing lack of flashy magic. In place of a fairy Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
For anyone disposed to treat the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse as hallowed ground – and such issues have gained much currency at the Globe recently following the announced early departure of artistic director Emma Rice – The Little Matchgirl may seem like a wanton deconstruction of its space, which is cheeked into a knowing update that comes close to Edwardian music hall, and with aperçus stingingly relevant to the venue’s recent backstory (“Candles are much more atmospheric than electricity” is one such textual quip). For those less reverentially inclined, this adaptation of Hans Christian Read more ...
Vladimir Shcherban
On 10 October 2016, World Mental Health Day, the team of Belarus Free Theatre came back together to start the final stages of production for Tomorrow I Was Always a Lion, a new theatre show based on Arnhild Lauveng’s autobiographical book. Arnhild Lauveng is a Norwegian writer and practicing psychologist. In the book she tells the story of her own recovery from the incurable condition of schizophrenia.Every production created by Belarus Free Theatre is dedicated to those people who challenge themselves and the circumstances they are living in. The story of BFT itself is a story of overcoming Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Australian Ballet's cinema broadcast on Tuesday night appears to have been a little under-publicised
– at least in my local multiplex, which was deafeningly empty with just five spectators. I suspect a combination of circumstances to be at work: the lower international profile of Australian Ballet relative to others who do cinema screenings, like the Royal Ballet or the Bolshoi; the multiplex location, where the culture on screen market is less developed than at arts cinemas which show plays/ballets/operas/exhibitions much more often; and perhaps also the fact that the Sleeping Beauty Read more ...
Barney Harsent
If you’re going to go toe-to-toe with Daredevil and Jessica Jones, the first two series in Netflix’s supremely realised and blood-spattered depiction of Marvel Comic’s Hell’s Kitchen, it’s as well to do it with conviction. By hosting Preacher, based on the comic book series by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, Amazon went in swinging – low and hard, fighting dirty from the off.WARNING: HERE BE SPOILERS!The series concluded on the streaming service this week, but even before it had aired there were concerns about whether it could ever do the comics justice. In fairness, the story of a man of the Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Does Alexei Ratmansky, former Bolshoi director and current world-leading classical choreographer, really love Prokofiev's Cinderella, or did he choose to create a new one for Australian Ballet in 2013 principally because he wasn't happy with his first (for the Mariinsky) in 2002? My bet is a bit of both: the second production, like the first, shines with an unfeigned affection for both score and story, but it also reads as a candy-coloured riposte to the usual adjectives applied to the 2002 production: ugly, spiky, uneven. If Ratmansky's first Cinderella was a tongue-scorching Wasabi pea, Read more ...