19th century
Veronica Lee
Considering how the UK prides itself on having created the "Mother of Parliaments" and its citizens having once chopped off a king's head for thwarting its will, remarkably little is taught in our schools about one of the seminal events on the way to fully democratising this country: the Peterloo Massacre.Mike Leigh's spawling, intricately detailed film will give you a good overview of that appalling day in British history; on 16 August 1819 an undisciplined and badly led group of mounted and foot soldiers – whose commanding officer had a more pressing date at the races – charged with sabres Read more ...
Steve O'Rourke
Realistic open world games need the little touches to convince you of the reality within which you play. Perhaps it’s your character’s beard that grows a little more each day, maybe it’s the way mud builds up on his boots during wet weather, or how he makes a cup of coffee and talks to members of his 20-strong gang in the morning. But the little touches add to the big picture and Red Dead Redemption 2 is full of the former, creating a sumptuous, deliciously immersive open world adventure that does everything it can to redefine the big picture concept in a videogame context. The Read more ...
aleks.sierz
It's all in the title, isn't it? Martin McDonagh's surreal new play comes with a warning that not only screams its intentions, but echoes them through repetition. Okay, okay, I get it. This is going to be a dark story, a very very very dark story. And, talking of repetition, the show's cast — in its premiere at the Bridge Theatre — is led by Jim Broadbent, who has form with this playwright. He was also in McDonagh's The Pillowman at the National in 2003 — and that was also a dark tale that was bleaker than bleak. Hot on the heels of the hilarious massacres of the recent revival of his The Read more ...
David Nice
Here it comes - get a grip. The tears have started flowing in the trio "Quid sum miser" and 12 minutes later, as the tenor embarks on his "Ingemisco" solo, you have to stop the shakes turning into noisy sobbing. The composer then lets you off the hook for a bit, but only transcendent beauty in singing and playing can achieve quite this effect in Verdi's Requiem. No one conducts it with more sense of nuance, more space and silence at the right points, than Antonio Pappano, last night giving the perfect base for an outstanding solo quartet, his own Royal Opera Orchestra on top form and the Read more ...
David Nice
Why are great Wagnerian singers the most down-to-earth and collegial in the world of opera? Perhaps you have to be to master and sustain the biggest roles in the business, ones which can't be performed in isolation, and a strong constitution helps, too. Birgit Nilsson, the farmer's daughter born in rural Sweden 100 years ago, had all those qualities and many more. So, too, does her compatriot and one-time disciple Nina Stemme, making her perhaps the most appropriate laureate of the Birgit Nilsson Prize in terms of carrying on the line (the previous recipients at various intervals since the Read more ...
Richard Bratby
There’s always a special atmosphere when the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra returns to Birmingham Town Hall, and it’s not just because of the building’s Greek Revival beauty: the gilded sunburst on the ceiling, or the towering, intricately painted mass of the organ, topped with its cameo of Queen Victoria. Or, for that matter, the sense of history: that you’re occupying the space where Mendelssohn, Dvořák and Elgar premiered major choral works, and where Gounod narrowly escaped assassination at the hands of a jilted mistress (advanced students of Birmingham musical history can savour Read more ...
David Nice
Latvia is fighting fit. The recent elections did not see the expected victory for the pro-Kremlin Harmony party; support for the European Union and NATO will be well represented. Last week the feisty Lavtian Ambassador to the UK, Baiba Braže, landed a perfectly diplomatic punch on the smug mug of our latest apology for a Foreign Secretary, taking former Remainer Hunt to task for his outrageous parallels between the EU and the Soviet gulag by reminding him how Latvia had suffered under the USSR and how eagerly it has adopted the best European values. And last night's second Royal Festival Hall Read more ...
Robert Beale
Two days after announcing his appointment as their next chief conductor (he takes the reins officially next summer, in time for the Proms), by remarkable good fortune the Manchester-based BBC Philharmonic was able to present Omer Meir Wellber as the conductor of their second Bridgewater Hall series concert. It was a harbinger of things to come – he said as much in the talk before the concert – in that he’s an experienced opera conductor and wants to bring the spirit of the stage, and probably the reality of more operatic performances, to the Philharmonic’s programming.So his Mozart opener – Read more ...
David Nice
Her special claim to fame was the most luminous pianissimo in the business, but that often went hand in velvet glove with fabulous breath control and a peerless sense of bel canto line. To know Maria de Montserrat Viviana Concepción Caballé i Folch, born in Barcelona 85 years ago, was clearly to love her. I never did (know her, that is), and I only saw her once, in a 1986 recital at the Edinburgh Festival. By then she was careful with her resources, but the subtly jewelled programme delivered on its own terms.There was a glimpse of the famous good nature, too. Here it is in an unexpected Read more ...
aleks.sierz
There are not that many plays about sport, but, whether you gamble on results or not, you can bet that most of them are about boxing. And often set in the past. Joy Wilkinson's superb new drama, The Sweet Science of Bruising, comes to the Southwark Playhouse, a venue which regularly punches above its weight (sorry!), armed with a beautifully evocative title and plenty of theatrical energy. It is also tells a story that is both original and affecting, about the Victorian subculture of female boxing. So hold tight, leave your squeamish side at home, and roll up to the ring to watch the Read more ...
David Nice
Earth stood hard as iron in parts of this awe-inspiring recital from a true song partnership, but theirs was an autumnal odyssey, not a winter journey. For all their preoccupation with death and occasionally desolation, neither Schubert at 31, in the last utterances gathered together as Schwanengesang ("Swansong"), nor Brahms, completing the Four Serious Songs on his 63rd birthday, was ready to leave this earth. You could argue that there's smiling spring in some of Schubert's inspirations, but not the way Gerald Finley or Julius Drake saw them, tellingly placing Brahms's monumental tetralogy Read more ...
David Nice
Siegfried is usually the problem with Siegfried. Even Stuart Skelton, top Tristan and currently singing an acclaimed Siegmund in this last revival of Keith Warner's rattlebag Ring, won't touch the longest, toughest heroic-tenor role in Wagner, the protagonist of his third opera in the tetralogy. Stefan Vinke, singing his 100th Siegfried during this Royal Opera run, is a true hero, still sounding as fresh as - well, not exactly a daisy, more like a magnolia grandiflora. His stamina gave us not only the most thrilling of climaxes to Act One, where the fearless lad reforges his father's Read more ...