London Coliseum
Orpheus and Eurydice, English National Opera review – imaginative but underwhelmingWednesday, 02 October 2019English 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 2019This 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 2019English 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 2019If 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 2019Diversity, 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 2018Sibling 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... |
Kiss Me, Kate, Opera North, London Coliseum review - Cole Porter delivered in true company styleThursday, 21 June 2018First palpable hit of the evening: a full orchestra in the pit under hyper-alert Opera North stalwart James Holmes, saxophones deliciously rampant. Second hit: they've got the miking of the voices right (very rare in West End shows). Third: the... Read more... |
The Sleeping Beauty, London Coliseum review - a triumph for English National BalletThursday, 07 June 2018When Tamara Rojo won the top job at English National Ballet in 2012, it looked like a poisoned chalice. Directors had come and gone, some of them with visionary ideas, but all were defeated by the company’s peculiar position as underdog to the... Read more... |
Chess, London Coliseum review - powerfully sung but still problematicWednesday, 02 May 2018Its origins as a concept album cling stubbornly to Chess, the Tim Rice collaboration with the male members of ABBA first seen on the West End in 1986 and extensively retooled since then in an ongoing quest to hit the elusive jackpot. Following hot... Read more... |
The Marriage of Figaro, English National Opera review - sassy, probing and splendidly castFriday, 30 March 2018One year to Brexit, a seemingly endless winter chill and Londoners need soul food, badly. I prescribe an evening of total immersion in The Marriage of Figaro. ENO’s second revival of Fiona Shaw’s sassy, probing production (with revival director... Read more... |
La traviata, English National Opera review - into a vortex of ineptitudeSaturday, 17 March 2018You don't have to be a good director to manage the artistic side of an opera house. Daniel Kramer arrived at ENO and boosted morale at a time when company relations with then-CEO Cressida Pollock had hit rock bottom, and his repertoire choices for... Read more... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, ENO review - shiveringly beautiful BrittenFriday, 02 March 2018“What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?” Hang on a minute, Tytania, there are no flowers. Instead, as Britten’s ominously low strings slither and tremble up and down the scale, the curtain rises on a huge, near-acidic emerald green hilly slope... Read more... |