19th century
Underdog: the Other, Other Brontë, National Theatre review - enjoyably comic if caricatured sibling rivalryFriday, 05 April 2024![]() The Brontë sisters and their ne'er-do-well brother will always make good copy. The brilliance of the women constrained by life in a Yorkshire parsonage contrasts dramatically with the wild moors around their home, while their early deaths lend... Read more... |
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, Marylebone Theatre review - from Russia with loveFriday, 29 March 2024![]() Like all great literature, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s final, eccentric, playfully wondrous short story seems to have been written just for us – across two centuries and on the other side of the world. It’s a resonance that ripples through Laurence Boswell’... Read more... |
La scala di seta, RNCM review - going heavy on the absinthe?Monday, 25 March 2024![]() The overture to Rossini’s La scala di seta is a frequent and familiar concert piece – not so the opera itself.It’s a light and frothy one-acter from 1812, just under two hours long including an interval, a farsa in Italian opera terms, and designed... Read more... |
Gillam, Hallé, Poska, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - an experience of colour and funThursday, 21 March 2024![]() There was a common factor in the superficially disparate elements of this Hallé concert, and it wasn’t just the fact that both soloist and conductor were female. It was an experience of the colours of the music and a sense of enjoyment of what... Read more... |
Osborne, BBC Philharmonic, Bihlmaier, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - an orchestra at the top of its gameMonday, 11 March 2024![]() Just a few days after the Hallé’s Bruckner 8, the BBC Philharmonic weighed in with his Seventh Symphony for its Manchester audience. We’re all getting a lot of Bruckner in his 200th anniversary year, and this was a wise choice, being one of his... Read more... |
Sargent and Fashion, Tate Britain review - portraiture as a performanceSaturday, 24 February 2024![]() At the turn of the 20th century, London’s smart set queued up to get their portraits painted by American-born artist John Singer Sargent. Sitting for him was a performance, a way to show the world just how rich, glamorous, clever or important you... Read more... |
Cavalleria Rusticana/Aleko, Opera North review - a new foil for MascagniFriday, 16 February 2024![]() Opera North have a new pairing for Mascagni’s popular but clichéd Cavalleria Rusticana in this double bill: an early Rachmaninov one-acter, written when he was 19. The production of the former is a revival of the one seen in 2017 in their Little... Read more... |
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Theatre Royal Haymarket review - inventive rollercoaster of a revampWednesday, 14 February 2024![]() Oscar Wilde’s 1890 novella The Picture of Dorian Gray has given the world a trope built for flattery, along the lines of: “You look so young, you must have a portrait growing old in your attic”. But how many who use this line have read the text... Read more... |
The King and I, Dominion Theatre review - welcome return for the Rodgers and Hammerstein classicWednesday, 31 January 2024![]() The giant crinolines are back, and the winsome little royal children with miniature temples on their heads, and the glorious songs. The King and I is at the Dominion for a six-week run: how does its storyline look under a 21st century follow-spot?... Read more... |
Radulović, Hallé, de la Parra, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - fun for the youngThursday, 25 January 2024![]() Back on home ground, the Hallé begin 2024 in Manchester with a repeated programme. I heard the first of three performances this week. It includes one piece they played only 10 days ago on a tour in Spain with the orchestra’s new principal... Read more... |
Tchaikovsky's Wife review - husband materialSunday, 31 December 2023![]() The movies haven’t been kind to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The Nutcracker Suite was a highlight of Walt Disney’s Fantasia (1940) perhaps, but the 1969 Soviet biopic directed by Igor Talankin was tedious and Ken Russell’s The Music Lovers, released... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Ravenna - Riccardo Muti passes on a lifetime's operatic wisdomTuesday, 26 December 2023![]() Does “the practice of opera singing in Italy” need help from UNESCO, which has newly inscribed it on the “Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity”? Italian opera is surely immensely popular worldwide. But when it comes to... Read more... |
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