Russia
David Nice
Sometimes the more modestly scaled Proms work best in the Albert Hall. Not that there was anything but vast ambition and electrifying communication from soprano Anna Prohaska and the 17-piece Il Giardino Armonico under Giovanni Antonini, making that 18 when he chose to take up various pipes (★★★★★). By contrast the big BBC commission from Joby Talbot to write a work for much-touted guitarist Miloš Karadaglić and orchestra in the evening's first Prom left very little impression. Praise be, then, to Glinka and Tchaikovsky for showing what glittering substance is all about, and to Alexander Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
There was a lovely moment at the beginning of this Panorama where David Dimbleby was chatting to a schoolgirl – not just any schoolgirl actually, because she came from a family of 10 children, which surely makes her a bit out of the ordinary, even in Russia, Putin’s or anyone else’s. Had he ever met the Queen, she asked. Twice, he replied, before enquiring what she thought of our monarch. Obvious approval beamed back. Why, he pressed. “She’s old, but she still runs the country.”Please, you thought, don’t give your man any ideas… Vladimir Putin will be 71 when his current term (his fourth, in Read more ...
David Nice
Towards the end of the Maly Drama Theatre of St Petersburg's Life and Fate, a long scene in director Lev Dodin's daring if necessarily selective adaptation of Vasily Grossman's epic novel brings many of the actors together after a sequence of painful monologues and one-to-ones. The social nuances and the glimmers of humour here in a mostly lightless play are pure Chekhov - a writer referenced several times by Grossman - and give us a preview of the warm, human laughter to come in the company's Uncle Vanya. Then the blackness envelops the drama again. It could hardly be otherwise in a tragedy Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
Five years ago, when New York playwright Rajiv Joseph started on his fantasy disquisition on truth, lies and the recent history of Russia, no one was talking about a new Cold War and trump was still a thing you did in a game of cards. Now, at the British premiere of Describe the Night, a wall in the foyer is beaming an image of Vladimir Putin and a pronouncement he made earlier that day. Full marks to Hampstead Theatre for being on the button. Eleven out of 10 to the playwright for attempting to fill in the blanks about a world leader who now seems to bend truth for a living.Over 12 scenes Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
In a manner uncannily reminiscent of last year’s Season 6, this latest edition of Homeland spent at least half the series trying to get warmed up for the dash to the tape over the final furlongs. Viewers finding themselves slipping into a catatonic stupor when confronted with yet more bombastic rantings from the crushingly dull ultra-right broadcaster Brett O’Keefe (Jake Weber), or those uninspired by the personality vacuum that was FBI agent Dante Allen (Morgan Spector), probably left this series for dead weeks ago.But from episode six, as the shape of the Russian conspiracy to sabotage the Read more ...
David Nice
Reaching for philosophical terms seems appropriate enough for two deep thinkers among Russian pianists (strictly speaking, Kolesnikov is Siberian-born, London-based). In what Kant defined as the phenomenal world, the tangible circumstances, there were equal if not always predictable measures of innocence and experience in these Wigmore recitals two days apart. Lugansky's began, and Kolesnikov's officially ended, with Schumann reimagined; Debussy was at the core of both (or one of several cores). In the noumenal sphere, both pianists reach for the "thing in itself", Ding an sich, chose en soi Read more ...
Miranda Heggie
It’s 25 years since Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin last came to the Scottish Opera stage, and this brand new production, directed by Oliver Mears, DIrector of Opera at The Royal Opera, gives the stirring score a stately yet elusive grandeur. Based on Alexander Pushkin’s verse-novel of the same name, this tale of unrequited love set against the trappings of class and duty is rooted well within the literary and musical traditions of 19th century Russia, yet easy to immerse oneself in today.The story is told within the context of female lead Tatyana’s memories from days gone by. Dancer, Read more ...
graham.rickson
Borgström: Violin Concerto, Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No. 1 Eldbjørg Hemsing (violin), Wiener Symphoniker/Olari Elts (BIS)Hjalmar Borgström sounds like the name of a BBC Four gumshoe, a melancholy detective solving crimes in downtown Tromsø. He was actually a Norwegian composer (1864-1925) who, like Grieg, studied in Germany, remaining there for 15 years. Grieg quickly assimilated his technique with native folk music, later expressing dismay at the younger Borgström’s lack of interest in making his music sound specifically Norwegian. His G major Violin Concerto was premiered in 1914 Read more ...
David Nice
Kudos, as ever, to Vladimir Jurowski for making epic connections. Not only did he bookend a rich LPO concert with two very different symphonies from the late 1930s by Stravinsky and Shostakovich; he also masterminded and attended the early evening special event, another variegated shell in the cornucopia of the Changing Faces: Stravinsky's Journey festival.Featuring the young players of the orchestra's Foyle Future Firsts programme and their mentors, it started with a lovable performance of Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks Concerto - exactly contemporary with the Symphony in C heard later - Read more ...
Mark Sanderson
Eight months have passed since the Russians invaded Norway in the first season of Jo Nesbo’s neo-Cold War thriller. Real-life events have only made Occupied seem more relevant. Like Conrad’s novel Under Western Eyes, it dramatises the clash between two world views: lily-livered liberalism versus ruthless realpolitik or, if you prefer, truth and lies. No wonder, on viewing it in Moscow, the Kremlin saw red.The theory is embodied with sweaty physicality. Season two opens with Jesper Berg (Henrik Mestad) and Anita Rygh (Janne Heltberg) bonking with typical Scandinavian abandon. (This naked Read more ...
mark.kidel
Andrey Zvyagintsev is without doubt one of the great film-makers of our time. If you only know Leviathan, it's about time you looked at the rest of his considerable oeuvre. What is it about Russian cinema? Since the 1920s, Russia has brought us a succession of directors who have combined story-telling with extraordinary imagery and unique spiritual depth. Russian film explores the human abyss with the same ruthless and forensic devotion displayed by the country’s great novelists and poets. It’s as if a culture nurtured on the numinous power of the icon recognised the intrinsic power of the Read more ...
David Nice
Anyone who's seen Richard Jones's rigorous production before will remember the makeover – Katerina Izmailova, bored and brutalised housewife released by sex and murder from her shackles, having her drab bedroom expanded and redecorated in deliberate incongruity with Shostakovich's most shattering orchestral music – and its polar opposite, the near-black horror of convicts in trucks by the river on their way to Siberia. The overall focus and ironic symmetries are still there, if not some of the fine tuning, an amazing 14 years on from the first airing, and even though Eva-Maria Westbroek's was Read more ...