Holland
David Nice
How do you render pure goodness interesting? Unorthodox director Dmitri Tcherniakov and radiant young soprano Svetlana Ignatovich make us smile and break our hearts with their take on the maiden Fevroniya: living at one with nature, seeing God in everything and destroyed by her encounter with civic life. There may be a touch too much religion and even putative Russian nationalism of the kind manipulated by Putin in Vladimir Belsky's poetic rendering of a myth, marrying the legend of a saint with the story of a city that vanishes to protect itself from the invading Tatars. But Rimsky-Korsakov' Read more ...
Veronica Lee
A camel is a horse designed by committee, they say; perhaps that explains why The Host, with several writing credits – adapted by Zachary Weckstein from a story by Laurence Lamers, screenplay by Finola Geraghty, Brendan Bishop and Lamers – doesn't really know what it is. Part suspense thriller, part crime caper, but mostly a Hitchcock rip-off (although I'm sure the creators would call it “homage”).It starts so promisingly, with Saul Bass-esque opening titles, but then we get into tale that becomes bogged down with trivial details. After being dumped by the married colleague with whom he has Read more ...
Sarah Kent
A young woman sits sewing (pictured below right: Young Woman Sewing,1655). She is totally immersed in her task, and our attention is similarly focused on her and every detail of her environment. The cool light pouring though the window illuminates her work and also gives us a clear view. She sits on a wooden platform that raises her above the cold floor tiles; on one side of her is a linen basket and, on the other, an ebony chair, its carved back and legs picked out with gleaming dots of light. Resting on the chair is a lacemaking kit replete with beautifully observed little bobbins, waiting Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Earlier this year, the Peter Laughner box set was more than an archive release. Its diligence and scale forced a wholesale reinterpretation of the evolution of America’s punk-era underground scene. What it collected – aurally and in its book – demonstrated Laughner was more of a pivotal figure than he had so far seemed, and that his actions and vision resonate more than four decades on from his death.Moving through a different musical landscape, the CD compilation The Daisy Age cohesively soundtracked for the first time how hip-hop opened itself up to seemingly unrelated music (and non-music Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
“Trance boogie,” states My Baby frontwoman Cato van Dijck before submersing herself in the rising tribal rhythm of “Sunflower Sutra". Trance boogie is, indeed, what My Baby do. The song is decked with floating flecks of glissando guitar from virtuosic New Zealand bandmate Daniel Johnston on the other side of the stage. “Sing with me, brother,” Cato demands with a smile and behind his drum kit her sibling Joost leans into his microphone and harmonises. Behind it all is a housey four-to-the-floor beat, but their sound is all organic groove.The van Dijcks are Dutch and the band hails from Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The contemporary context of the Netherlands’s Iguana Death Cult is clear. Their blues-edged garage rock exists in a continuum encompassing Amyl and The Sniffers, The Chats, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Oh Sees. Nude Casino is more measured than the first and second bands, less eclectic than the third and fourth but nonetheless is in tune with a pancontinental reductiveness where the bracing live experience – and relentless touring – is seemingly more important than finessing what’s caught on tape.Nude Casino, their second album, is hobbled by a flat, one-size-fits-all production Read more ...
'These were the quartets that made us fall in love with the genre': Dudok Quartet Amsterdam on Haydn
Dudok Quartet Amsterdam
As a string quartet, it’s not easy to distinguish yourselves from others. There are so many string quartets playing the great repertoire, and the level of quartets has never been as high as it is now. Everybody is trying to be unique.We are all part of a very long string quartet tradition. We have so many examples of great string quartets, so many fantastic recordings, so many people that played the same pieces. If you really want to distinguish yourself as a string quartet, would it not it be clever to step away from the core repertoire, to look for other opportunities?We have been thinking Read more ...
Katherine Waters
Vincent van Gogh (b. 1853) could be difficult, truculent and unconventional. He battled with mental illness and wrestled with questions of religion throughout his life. But on good form he was personable. He was said to be an excellent imitator with a wry sense of humour, and was a loyal (if often fierce) friend and family relation. The Noordbrabants Museum's new exhibition seeks to humanise the artist and people his world. It comprises paintings, drawings and personal documents spread across three main rooms that are either by van Gogh or people close to him, and shed light on his life. Here Read more ...
Matt Wolf
An excellent director makes a rare misstep with Amsterdam, in which a compelling if tricksy play is given an arch and mannered production that only distances the audience further. Not to be confused with either Rotterdam or Europe, two similarly titled plays that in name alone form a de facto triptych, Israeli writer Maya Arad Yasur's short, jagged play doesn't so much challenge playgoers as wilfully try their patience: the 80 minutes (no interval) pass very slowly indeed. (The translation is by Eran Edry.) The irony is that Yasur has an important story to tell about the weight of the Read more ...
Matthew Xia
I’m currently opening Amsterdam, my first production for Actors Touring Company since being appointed Artistic Director last year, at the Orange Tree theatre in Richmond and then in Plymouth early in 2020. And what better time to premiere a play for the Europe of the present, triggered by the Europe of the past. The themes it tackles are once again becoming increasingly urgent, so I very much see this as a statement of intent. I was born in East London in the 1980s but have never felt particularly English, though perhaps twice in my adult life I have felt British. Somehow I’ve Read more ...
Veronica Lee
This was the first of a two-part investigation into... well, I don't know what. The voiceover of High Society: Cannabis Café said it was an experiment “to test the alleged benefits of weed” and the people featured all had “a personal motivation for getting stoned” as they visited an Amsterdam coffee shop, where dope is sold legally.The jaunty music and lack of scientific context suggested that it was essentially a voyeuristic exercise where we watched normally uptight Brits getting giggly, having the munchies and (a few) telling someone they loved them.There were occasional funny moments Read more ...
David Nice
So this is how Bruckner's Fourth Symphony should go. It's taken a master conductor just past his 90th birthday and an orchestra on top form to teach me. No doubt Claudio Abbado and Brucknermeister Gunter Wand could have done so, too, but I never heard them live in this, the "Romantic", and they are no longer with us. Bernard Haitink - he eschews the "Sir" with a typically self-deprecating shrug - evinced a tearful semi-secret rapture in performances of Schumann's Second and Beethoven's "Pastoral" with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe; that he should do it in three-quarters of this Bruckner Read more ...