19th century
David Nice
Russian classics evening at the Proms? It could be what Alexandra Coghlan, writing about Prom 69, described as “another night at the musical office”. But given the masters in charge of two masterpieces fusing storytelling with symphonic sweep and one deservedly popular standard, there was no chance of that. Nikolai Lugansky is the only pianist I’d go out of my way to hear live in Rachmaninov’s Second Concerto, and while Yuri Temirkanov’s programmes with the St Petersburg Philharmonic have been pickled in aspic for years, their music-making together certainly hasn’t. The results were better in Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
William Dalrymple has discovered a fascinating true romance from history in this story of the relationship of Indian-born British diplomat James Achilles Kirkpatrick and the Muslim princess Khair-un-Nissa in Hyderabad at the turn of the 19th century. His remarkable programme not only captivated in itself but threw a fascinating light on layers of cultural differences, adaptations and understanding. Individual tolerance and even delight in varying views was threatened then, as now, by societal pressures and fear of the unfamiliar.Dalrymple uncovered the profound involvement of Europeans with Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
The television series Downton Abbey and Upstairs, Downstairs, along with Robert Atman’s film Gosford Park, notably illustrate the public’s continued fascination with the relation between masters, mistresses and their servants. Yet none of them, not even the Altman, charted that relation with quite as much complexity and ferocity as Strindberg’s Miss Julie, in which no-one emerges well from the class struggle.Written in 1888, the play represented Strindberg’s attempt to bring a new degree of naturalism to theatre. Its style and psychological acuity lend itself well to cinema; though being a Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Danish director Thomas Vinterberg specialises in claustrophobic, asphyxiating atmospheres, from his breakthrough family abuse tale Festen to the more recent study of small-town paranoia, The Hunt. Moving from domestic close-up to the Wessex wide shots and cosmic panoramas of Thomas Hardy, there’s a grinding of gears, and choosing Far From The Madding Crowd as his Hardy debut, when John Schlesinger’s 1967 adaptation is so revered, seems provocative.The Wessex countryside comes across as postcard-pretty rather than awesome and bleakVinterberg has cast well, and Carey Mulligan as Bathsheba Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
If you were expecting a fusty, formal adaptation of Anthony Trollope – and one of his least known novels, to boot – Lady Anna: All At Sea will come as a breath of fresh air. Colin Blumenau’s production of Craig Baxter’s play, based loosely around the Trollope novel of the same name and commissioned by the Trollope Society to mark the bicentenary of the writer’s birth, speeds through its two-hour-plus run, keeping a nimble crew of seven on its toes and the audience engaged in its ludic conspiracies.The “All At Sea” element, the “interloping” part of the story if you like, refers to Trollope Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
St Petersburg Ballet Theatre is a phenomenon of the new Russia: not anchored in centuries of history or state patronage like its neighbours the Mariinsky and the Mikhailovsky, but founded as a commercial venture in 1994 by Konstantin Tachkin, a wannabe impresario with no balletic training. It tours widely, and evidently has no difficulty selling out foreign theatres – including the Coliseum for Swan Lake last night – with a combination of recognisable productions and "Russian ballet" cachet.The centre of the company's hard sell is their prima ballerina, Irina Kolesnikova, who on this London Read more ...
Richard Bratby
At the beginning of Act Two of John Savournin’s production of HMS Pinafore, the quarterdeck is in darkness. Kevin Greenlaw’s Captain Corcoran steps out of his cabin, downs a brandy stiffener, and launches into his melancholy lament to the moon. Woodwinds echo the ends of sighing phrases as the strings pluck their accompaniment: something about this sounds familiar. And as cymbals clash melodramatically and David Steadman, conducting, underlines the ominous chromatic rise and fall of the bass line in Little Buttercup’s fateful duet with the Captain, the target of Sullivan’s musical satire Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
A weekend of extremes at the Proms took us from stark solo Bach on Saturday to the massed forces of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the chorus of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, gathered under Donald Runnicles for Verdi’s Requiem. As a showcase for the kinds of repertoire the awkward Royal Albert Hall really does do well, it was pretty nigh perfect.It’s always good (and far too rare) to see Donald Runnicles in London. The chief conductor of the BBCSSO announced his arrival by immediately wrong-footing his audience. Refusing to fulfil the promise and expectation of his massed musical forces Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Axed by the BBC at the end of 2013 after its second series, ostensibly because of poor viewing figures, Ripper Street found a new home on Amazon Prime, where the third series began streaming in November last year. With a fourth and fifth series already commissioned by Amazon, the BBC is making up for lost time by airing Series Three. Perhaps the Top Gear bunch will be back on the Beeb yet.Happily, the change of address has done Ripper Street no harm at all, and this powerful opener centred on a train robbery gone wrong in London's East End. Masked hijackers set out to steal a Read more ...
David Nice
From now until 12 September, when Wigmore darling Iestyn Davies returns to open the new season, the biggest names in instrumental music are to be heard in the biggest venue, the Albert Hall. With all eyes and ears turned by maximum publicity towards the Proms, folk may have forgotten that the Wigmore Hall concerts were ongoing until last night. The finale was unexpectedly spectacular: while Leif Ove Andsnes was offering pure spring-water Beethoven over in South Kensington, young Israeli pianist Matan Porat served a hard-hitting cocktail of a programme, beginning and ending with fireworks but Read more ...
Richard Bratby
Sunlight bounces off Derbyshire stone, buskers strum on the Pavilion Gardens bandstand and there’s improvised Shakespeare on the streets: it’s Festival time again in Buxton. Frank Matcham’s Opera House doesn’t present a particularly festive appearance to the street – he had to squeeze it in next to the Winter Gardens, after all – but once you’re inside, it’s a positive confectioner’s shop of ceramic tiles, coloured glass and swirling gilt, quite as breezily ritzy as any of Matcham’s West End creations. Painted cartouches on either side of the stage proclaim the twin gods of the British Read more ...
David Nice
Beethoven’s piano concertos have been no strangers to any Proms season. Only five years ago our own Paul Lewis embarked on a cycle not so very far, in terms of elegance and stylishness, from that of the present pianist-in-residence, Leif Ove Andsnes. Where Lewis proved a phenomenal trill-master, Andsnes’ runs and flights make his own approach especially rich and rare. The difference is that the current Odysseus reaches the Ithaca of the Royal Albert Hall after four years touring with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, a uniquely responsive and intuitive band which he’s directing/conducting from Read more ...