19th century
Being Mr Wickham, Jermyn Street Theatre review - the plausible, charming roué gives his version of events 30 years onTuesday, 11 June 2024
It is a truth universally acknowledged that an actor tends to take a sympathetic view of the character he inhabits, however morally questionable. Adrian Lukis, who played the handsome, roguish militiaman, George Wickham, in Andrew Davies's (still... Read more... |
Marie Curie, Charing Cross Theatre review - like polonium, best left undiscoveredTuesday, 11 June 2024
There are many women whose outstanding science was attributed to men or simply devalued to the point of obscurity, but recent interest in the likes of DNA pioneer Rosalind Franklin and NASA’s Katherine Johnson has given credit where credit is due.... Read more... |
Rosalie review - a bride embraces her differenceMonday, 10 June 2024
Stéphanie Di Giusto, who directed the Belle Époque arts biopic La Danseuse, about the groundbreaking Paris Opera performer Loie Fuller, explores the life of another maverick – albeit a reluctant one – in Rosalie. Whereas La Danseuse embraces... Read more... |
Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - meeting a musical communicatorFriday, 03 May 2024
Kahchun Wong, the Hallé’s principal conductor from the coming autumn season, presided in the Bridgewater Hall for the first time yesterday since the announcement of his appointment.It was in the last of the four “Rush Hour” concerts recently... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Marco Bellocchio - the last maestroSaturday, 27 April 2024
The last of the old maestros is standing tall. Marco Bellocchio was a Marxist firebrand when he made his iconoclastic debut with Fists in the Pocket (1965). Now aged 84, he makes intellectually and emotionally muscular, hit epics about abused... Read more... |
Špaček, BBC Philharmonic, Bihlmaier, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - three flavours of ViennaMonday, 22 April 2024
Billed as a “Viennese Whirl”, this programme showed that there are different kinds of music that may be known to the orchestral canon as coming from Vienna.For a start, there’s the classical tradition of Mozart, Beethoven and those who aimed to be... Read more... |
Simon Boccanegra, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - thrilling, magnificent explorationFriday, 19 April 2024
If ever more evidence were needed of Sir Mark Elder’s untiring zest for exploration and love of the thrill of live opera performance, it was this ground-breaking collaborative event with Opera Rara – a performance coupled to a new studio recording... Read more... |
Carmen, Royal Opera review - strong women, no sexual chemistry and little stage focusSaturday, 06 April 2024
When will the Royal Opera give us a totally electrifying Carmen, rather than just a vocally perfect Carmen (as Aighul Akhmetshina surely is)? Supposed firebrand Damiano Michieletto’s production is mostly tepid after Barrie Kosky’s half-brilliant... Read more... |
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... |
