The repertoire of the OAE is creeping away from the 18th century and into the 20th with such unashamed eagerness, it wouldn't be at all surprising to see them throwing up an urtext edition of "Hit Me Baby One More Time" in a few seasons. Last night, we got 20th-century French impressionism, including a work that was premiered in 1933. Some might call this expansion into the last century bold. Others greedy. But in the hands of their guest conductor, Sir Simon Rattle, it's also never anything less than fascinating.Though it doesn't immediately tally on paper, the match-up made Read more ...

And so Desperate Housewives has ended after eight funny and entertaining seasons. Marc Cherry's creation, which first went on air in October 2004, deservedly won numerous Emmys and Golden Globes along the way. It was set in the small town of Fairview in the fictional Eagle State and followed the lives of four neighbours on the same street - Susan (Teri Hatcher), Bree (Marcia Cross), Lynette (Felicity Huffman) and Gaby (Eva Longoria).The series started with the suicide of their Wisteria Lane neighbour, Mary Alice (Brenda Strong), and the roles in it played by her husband and son. The Read more ...

The new Ninth Symphony, from the pen of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, is something of a paradox.  It was commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the Helskinki Philharmonic Orchestra and is dedicated to the Queen on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee. And yet it is a round condemnation of the nation’s interventions – called "disastrous" by the composer in his programme notes – in Iraq and Afghanistan.Quite how that sits in a work dedicated to Her Majesty who is, after all, Head of the Armed Services created some confusion in the minds of those attending its premiere. The Read more ...

Many people will be having their first taste of the late Pina Bausch’s dance-theatre in this copious London retrospective of 10 of her “World City” productions; others will have bought into several of the series, possibly by now wondering how many hours they can take of her barbed view of men and women. For all of us, reading programme notes is beside the point; the background you need is what’s inside you, your memories, your songs, your susceptibilities. Rome is a history as much as a city, which made Viktor (the first of the series, last week) dense with interest, a palimpsest of centuries Read more ...

Has Louis Theroux got a bit of a porn addiction? This is the second time he has visited the fleshpots of suburban California to find out what (and indeed who) is going down. Actually, as the first film was 15 years ago when Theroux was an all-but-pimply spindleshanks with outsize Blair-era specs, he is probably in the clear. But you do have to wonder whether Theroux is running out of American weirdos to spend the weekend with. There was a distinct sense of an older, wiser but less twinkly filmmaker coming round the block again.The premise of Twilight of the Porn Stars was that an industry in Read more ...

If the three-day Songlines Encounters Festival got off to a rousing start with folk-punk rowdiness from Poland’s R.U.T.A, by last night things were decidedly more genteel. The Festival, anyway, was an exhilarating musical voyage. Spiro’s last album is called Kaleidophonica, and sports a dizzying cover. Rather than the lysergic rush that might suggest, their music is pastoral but as intricate as a Swiss watch, seemingly restrained but with visionary undercurrents.The Bristol-based instrumental band have been going for 17 years. A couple of years ago they were signed to Peter Gabriel’s Real Read more ...

In this self-sufficient age of laptops and loop pedals you have to admire the Werner Herzog-like vision and ambition of a singer-songwriter who decides his compositions deserve to be fully brought to life by an orchestra. After all, who has their own orchestra these days? Tony Bennett, perhaps, or Barbra Streisand? But certainly not someone who’s most recent video has so far only garnered 400 hits on YouTube. Yet last night in the acoustically idea setting of the Union Chapel, the confident yet surprisingly self-effacing Johnny Parry came across like the million-selling artist he certainly Read more ...

David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars 40th Anniversary EditionHoward MaleLet’s start with the bombshell. Yes, Ziggy is a landmark Seventies album but it’s not the masterpiece it should or even could have been, and no amount of remastering or repackaging can change that. For one thing, it simply doesn’t hold together as a concept album or rock opera. For another, the apocalyptic theme set up by the opening number “Five Years” is never followed through (and anyway, Bowie covered this whole area so much better on Diamond Dogs). Then there’s the sore thumb of Read more ...

With the obvious exceptions of Verdi’s twin masterpieces Otello and Falstaff, Così fan tutte is the most Shakespearean of operas. Centuries before anyone invented the term, it’s nothing less than opera’s most elegant study in sexual politics. Written with the textural richness and emotional reversals of Much Ado About Nothing, it needs acting/singing performances of true depth in order to succeed. Harry Fehr’s new production adds a framing device of conscious performance, but intriguing though this is, it distracts from true engagement with the heart of the work.Intent upon underlining the Read more ...

“A dirty fairy tale” was one of the encomiums lobbed at The Apartment in June 1960, nine months before it won Billy Wilder and I A L Diamond the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and Wilder the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director. Although The Saturday Review’s influential Hollis Alpert was critically off the mark when he disparaged Wilder’s serious adult comedy, he was right to describe it as a fairy tale. A prince does rescue a princess after an ogre’s cruel treatment of her has caused her to fall into a fatal sleep.The “dirty” part is more complex. The premise is undeniably Read more ...

 Bach: Brandenburg Concertos, Sinfonias Orchestra of the Antipodes/Antony Walker, Anna MacDonald, Erin Helyard (ABC Classics)Exactly why this set, recorded in Sydney in 2003, has waited so long for a commercial release is a bit of a puzzle. These are fabulous performances in every sense. The playing is so vibrant, so alive that resistance is futile. Bach’s six Brandenburg Concertos are as ubiquitous as Baroque music gets, but their familiarity shouldn’t hide their musical qualities. I loved Riccardo Chailly’s historically informed modern instrument versions, but these recordings Read more ...

It’s one thing for UK Border Control to turn Heathrow’s Arrivals into a giant theme-park queue, but it’s quite another when they start messing with our music. Paperwork issues yesterday saw one Japanese and two Korean members of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra denied entry to the UK, leaving Ton Koopman and his band too under-staffed to attempt their planned Brandenburg Concerto. Fortunately, soprano soloist Dorothee Mields stepped up with Bach’s Cantata BWV 199, giving us a rather more vocal, but no less Bach-centric evening of music to open this year’s Spitalfields Festival.One of the Read more ...