Collaborations for dance, theatre and other things are coming thick and fast at Sadler’s Wells nowadays - these are not halcyon days for pure choreography. Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui has become a regular at Rosebery Avenue with his mixed-theatre works FOI, Myth, Zero Degrees and Sutra, with Antony Gormley, Akram Khan and the Shaolin Monks, and now here's his fifth, BABEL (words). This is definitely wordy, and certainly a Babel of languages, Japanese, French, Italian, Turkish, Dutch, German, daffy in places, an aimless drag in others, and a mystifying 100 minutes long (yet certainly no less Read more ...
theatre design
Ismene Brown
Christmas ballet would be unthinkable without The Nutcracker. But what kind of Christmas should it be? This year the UK fields an astonishing array of visions, from Biedermeier formality at the Royal Ballet, to Fanny and Alexander romanticism at Birmingham Royal Ballet, Elvis cartoons at English National Ballet, and expressionist German psychodrama at Scottish Ballet.Three of Britain's most famous designers, Gerald Scarfe, Antony McDonald and John F Macfarlane, talk here about their preoccupations as they set about picturing the fairytale ballet, and in the gallery elsewhere see a fabulous Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Is the look to be Beckmann, Bergman or Nicky Haslam? To accompany the interviews with Nutcracker designers elsewhere, here are three very different design portfolios tackling the eternal magic of this favourite ballet with unexpected reference points. Sketches by John F Macfarlane for Birmingham Royal Ballet, Antony McDonald for Scottish Ballet and Gerald Scarfe for English National Ballet are seen with production stills alongside.Read interviews with the three designers elsewhere on theartsdesk, where they explain their thinking and working methods. John Macfarlane for Birmingham Royal Read more ...
Ismene Brown
A delicious new treat is promised at The Royal Opera House for Christmas: a comic opera by Tchaikovsky that brings the wit and fun of a Russian magical folk tale to the stage in a staging of rare opulence. A story of turbulent love, magical rides through the sky with the Devil, and an impossible task - to get a peasant girl a pair of Catherine the Great's slippers - The Tsarina's Slippers has ballets and Cossack dancing as well as a host of singing characters.Director Francesca Zambello, costume designer Tatiana Noginova and choreographer Alastair Marriott here reveal their preparations, and Read more ...
Ismene Brown
A new production by The Royal Opera of Tchaikovsky's The Tsarina's Slippers opens on Friday at Covent Garden, directed by Francesca Zambello, designed by Mikhail Mokrov and Tatiana Noginova, and with an all-Russian cast of principals conducted by Alexandr Polianichko. Read Ismene Brown's interviews with the creative team elsewhere, and enjoy this feast of design models, costume sketches and production photographs.Click on a picture to enter full view and the slideshow.Sets by Mikhail Mokrov[bg|/OPERA/ismene_brown/tsarinas_slippers/sets]Costume designs by Tatiana NoginovaCharacters: Vakula, a Read more ...