19th century
theartsdesk at the Lahti Sibelius Festival - early epics by the Finnish master in contextSaturday, 06 September 2025
It’s weird, if wonderful, that vibrant young composers at the end of the 19th century should have featured death so prominently in their hero-sagas. Assume their inspiration came from Wagner’s Siegmund, Siegfried and Tristan. But Sibelius, Mahler... Read more... |
The Count of Monte Cristo, U&Drama review - silly telly for the silly seasonTuesday, 05 August 2025
Alexandre Dumas’ novel has been filmed an immeasurable number of times (there was a new French version only last year) and televised even more frequently (a Mexican incarnation materialised in 2023). Yet the world still can’t get enough, so here’s... Read more... |
That Bastard, Puccini!, Park Theatre review - inventive comic staging of the battle of the BohèmesThursday, 17 July 2025
Before Luigi Illica wrote the libretti for Puccini’s Tosca and Madama Butterfly, he had joined the composer as the librettist in a race to stage the first production of La Bohème. The race was against Ruggero Leoncavallo, a composer Illica had once... Read more... |
Hamlet, Buxton International Festival review - how to re-imagine re-imagined ShakespeareThursday, 17 July 2025
Ambroise Thomas’s version of Hamlet is the flagship production of this year’s Buxton International Festival and was always going to be a considerable challenge. How to re-imagine what is admittedly a very 19th century, very French Romantic re-... Read more... |
Kiefer / Van Gogh, Royal Academy review - a pairing of oppositesSaturday, 05 July 2025
When he was a callow youth of 18, German artist Anselm Keifer got a travel grant to follow in the footsteps of his idol, Vincent van Gogh. Some sixty years later, work by the two artists has been brought together at the Royal Academy in a show that... Read more... |
Intimate Apparel, Donmar Warehouse review - stirring story of Black survival in 1905 New YorkSaturday, 28 June 2025
The corset is an unlikely star of the latest Lynn Nottage play to arrive at the Donmar Warehouse, 2003’s Intimate Apparel. After the more male-dominated Sweat and Clyde’s at the same address, this is a personal piece about the lot of Black women,... Read more... |
RNCM International Diploma Artists, BBC Philharmonic, MediaCity, Salford review - spotting stars of tomorrowSaturday, 21 June 2025
Two concerts in the BBC Philharmonic’s series in their own studio form the climax of studies at the Royal Northern College of Music for a small number of soloists on the postgraduate International Artist Diploma there, and also for some young... Read more... |
Dandy, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - a destination attainedMonday, 16 June 2025
The opening and closing concerts of a season tend to be statements of intent – to pursue a path of exploration or (latterly) to celebrate a destination attained. John Storgårds’ final programme of the BBC Philharmonic’s series at the Bridgewater... Read more... |
La Straniera, Chelsea Opera Group, Barlow, Cadogan Hall review - diva power saves minor BelliniMonday, 02 June 2025
Chelsea Opera Group has made its own luck in winning the devotion of two great bel canto exponents: Nelly Miricioiu between 1998 and 2010, Helena Dix over the past 10 years. Last night was Dix’s official farewell before moving back to her native... Read more... |
The Queen of Spades, Garsington Opera review - sonorous gliding over a heart of darknessMonday, 02 June 2025
Recent events have prompted the assertion – understandable in Ukraine – that the idea of the Russian soul is a nationalist myth. This production reminded me that it isn’t, if only by telling us of what we’ve lost: the majority of those great Russian... Read more... |
Owen, Manchester Camerata, Takács-Nagy, Stoller Hall, Manchester review - more Mozart made in ManchesterSaturday, 24 May 2025
Manchester Camerata spent eight years performing and recording a complete edition of Mozart’s piano concertos with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet as soloist, together with conductor Gábor Takács-Nagy, and inevitably there was the question: what next?Their... Read more... |
Parsifal, Glyndebourne review - the music flies up, the drama remains belowMonday, 19 May 2025
There’s a grail, but it doesn't glow in a mundane if perverted Christian ritual. Three of the main characters have young and old actor versions and the “wonder-working spear” is a knife in a Cain and Abel story superimposed on Wagner’s myth (as if... Read more... |
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