London Coliseum
Le Corsaire, London Coliseum review - hugely entertainingFriday, 10 January 2020
It’s unlikely that Lord Byron would recognise much about Le Corsaire. Beyond the characters’ names and the Ottoman location, there is little trace of the 1814 bestselling verse-novel on whose fame the ballet hitched a ride. Its plot is very silly... Read more... |
Radio & Juliet/Faun/McGregor + Mugler, London Coliseum review - a fashion faux pasTuesday, 10 December 2019
A pas de deux is normally an opportunity for two dancers to express the pinnacle of their skill and the choreographer's art. In the case of McGregor + Mugler, the duet receiving its world premiere as part of a Russian-sponsored triple bill, it... Read more... |
Svetlana Zakharova, Modanse, London Coliseum review - impeccably chic but soul-lessThursday, 05 December 2019
What price a pair of seats at the ballet? If you’re talking the latest starry Russian import then, with a few perks thrown in, you might not see much change from £800. And yet the size of the first-night crowd queuing for Modanse, a double bill... Read more... |
Orphée, English National Opera review – through a screen darklySaturday, 16 November 2019
Like almost everything that it touches these days, English National Opera’s autumn season of shows rooted in the Orpheus myth has enjoyed a fairly mixed reception. The company’s programme of visits to the Underworld concludes with another high-risk... Read more... |
The Mask of Orpheus, English National Opera review - amorphous excessSaturday, 19 October 2019
Advance publicity overstated the case for The Mask of Orpheus. "Iconic"? Only to academics and acolytes, for British audiences haven't had a chance to see a production since ENO's world premiere run in 1986. "Masterpiece"? Sitting there after the... Read more... |
Orpheus in the Underworld, English National Opera review – ENO goes to hellMonday, 07 October 2019
Maybe some British opera houses just don’t get operetta. Without wit, lightness and snappy pace, cudgelling us with desperate relevance, the frothiest works crash to earth stone cold dead. There have been disasters elsewhere, too, though... Read more... |
Orpheus and Eurydice, English National Opera review – imaginative but underwhelmingWednesday, 02 October 2019
English National Opera chose a curiously low-key production to open their season. Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice has only three singing roles and very little action. For this production, Wayne McGregor has reimagined the work as an opera/dance hybrid... Read more... |
On Your Feet!, London Coliseum review - Gloria Estefan bio-musical hits familiar notesFriday, 28 June 2019
This well-meaning biographical jukebox musical about icons Gloria and Emilio Estefan, which did two years on Broadway and a US tour, is good summer scheduling, what with its Latin-pop bangers, infectious dance routines and “Dreams come true”... Read more... |
Man of La Mancha, London Coliseum review - historical work better left in the pastWednesday, 01 May 2019
English National Opera continues its run of semi-staged musicals, in commercial collaboration with Grade Linnit, with a revival of this vintage oddity. Mind, commercial might be a stretch, as Dale Wasserman, Joe Darion and Mitch Leigh's 1965 work –... Read more... |
Jack the Ripper: The Women of Whitechapel, English National Opera review - powerful ensemble, wrong subjectSunday, 31 March 2019
If you can’t put a name to any of Jack the Ripper’s victims – and spin it however you please, victims they remain – then you shouldn’t buy the publicity about this new opera "bringing dignity back" to the murdered women in question. Isn’t it time to... Read more... |
Swan Lake, English National Ballet, London Coliseum review - a solid, go-to productionFriday, 04 January 2019
Diversity, and the need for more of it, is a hot potato in the theatre arts. Kudos, then, to English National Ballet and its director Tamara Rojo for the 23 nationalities represented within its ranks. And for the poster advertising the company’s... Read more... |
Salome, English National Opera review - a not so terrible stillnessSaturday, 29 September 2018
Sibling incest among the symbolic clutter of the Royal Opera Ring on Wednesday, last night necrophilia and a bit more incest – mother and daughter this time, courtesy of the director's imagination – in a stone-cold ENO Salome. Adena Jacobs'... Read more... |
