sat 19/10/2024

ROH

Cinderella, Royal Ballet

No longer, it seems, need ballet's most transformable heroine languish by the seasonal fireside. It's true that you'll have to wait until Christmas to see the most visually striking Cinderella of all again - Ashley Page's fitfully ingenious Scottish...

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Royal Opera House hits low note

The Royal Opera House's website in stasis

As anyone on the Royal Opera House's mailing list will no doubt be aware, today is the first day you can book for the new season. In theory. Why in theory? Because currently I am number 1087 in the queue to get onto the website. Not even to buy...

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theartsdesk Q&A: Opera Directors Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser

It is rare enough for directors to collaborate in theatre, even rarer in opera. Patrice Caurier (b. Paris, 1954) and Moshe Leiser (b. Antwerp, 1956) began their long collaboration in their 20s. They are now in their 50s, and since that first...

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Production Gallery: Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser at the Royal Opera House

Adultery alla Rossini: Il turco in Italia stars Ildebrando D'Arcangelo as Selim and Aleksandra Kurzak as Fiorilla

As co-directors of opera, Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser's fidelity to each other's artistic vision is one thing. Their devotion to Rossini is also relatively unusual. Their loyalty to and faith in their designers is almost as deep. In this...

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Concerto/The Judas Tree/Elite Syncopations, Royal Ballet

Another night, another cast, another Judas Tree (see first-night review below this) - and yet more proof of what a tough, durable, shape-shifting piece Kenneth MacMillan created in his last year of life. Recently theartsdesk interviewee Thiago...

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The Cunning Little Vixen, Royal Opera

The Vixen and the lard-arse Hens: 'love and loss and the joys of being alive'

I have no compunction laying into vastly overrated composers, crazily overpaid conductors or lazily over-employed directors. I feel slightly more guilty doing the same to struggling singers or musicians. But a cast of tiny children dressed up as...

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As One/ Rushes/ Infra, Royal Ballet

Someone sharp as a whip thought hard about the price-fun balance of the latest Royal Ballet triple bill. An accountant, probably.  Deep inside the cloisters of the Royal Opera House, they said: “Now top price stalls are £97 each for Romeo and...

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Different Drummer: the Life of Kenneth MacMillan

The spy out in the cold, the alienated Heathcliff of ballet, rough-hewn, moody and a little frightening - this is an image that’s commonly paraded of the choreographer Kenneth MacMillan. His ballets stand up that image, staging barely watchable...

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The Tsarina's Slippers, Royal Opera House

Larissa Diadkova (Solokha) and Maxim Mikhailov (the Devil) in The Tsarina's Slippers

A vain, capricious girl sends her lunk of a suitor on a quest for the best ruby slippers in the world, while said lunk's mother, the village witch, cosies up to the Devil. It's a whimsical Christmas Eve tale, exuberantly narrated by Nikolay Gogol in...

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2009 Classic FM Gramophone Awards, Dorchester Hotel

The term "Awards Ceremony" can strike terror into the stoutest of hearts, but hats off to the masterminds of the 2009 Classic FM Gramophone awards. Their shindig at the Dorchester was enjoyable, educational, and even intermittently hilarious (and...

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DVD Release: Twin Spirits (Opus Arte)

Having brought John Dowland to the masses with his album Songs from the Labyrinth, Sting takes another shot at presenting classical music to a wider audience which has developed the infuriating habit of not taking any notice of it. In this live...

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