theartsdesk in Ravenna - Riccardo Muti passes on a lifetime's operatic wisdom

December 25, 2023, 10:05 pm

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★★★★★ THEARTSDESK IN RAVENNA Riccardo Muti passes on a lifetime's operatic wisdom

Three unforgettable evenings with the most experienced living exponent of Italian opera

Does “the practice of opera singing in Italy” need help from UNESCO, which has newly inscribed it on the “Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity”? Italian opera is surely immensely popular worldwide. But when it comes to practising the art properly, its greatest senior exponent, Riccardo Muti, powerfully argues that Verdi and Bellini, his most recent special projects in the city where he lives, Ravenna, need as much respect and care as Beethoven or Schubert.

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Tchaikovsky's Wife review - husband material

December 31, 2023, 2:39 am

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★★ TCHAIKOVSKY'S WIFE Discord drowns out gay composer's marriage in Serebrennikov's biopic

Discord drowns out gay composer's marriage in Kirill Serebrennikov's biopic

The movies haven’t been kind to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The Nutcracker Suite was a highlight of Walt Disney’s Fantasia (1940) perhaps, but the 1969 Soviet biopic directed by Igor Talankin was tedious and Ken Russell’s The Music Lovers, released two years later, worse than that.

Radulović, Hallé, de la Parra, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - fun for the young

January 25, 2024, 12:06 am

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Concerto by Khachaturian provides a centrepiece and a demonstration by two rising stars

Back on home ground, the Hallé begin 2024 in Manchester with a repeated programme. I heard the first of three performances this week. It includes one piece they played only 10 days ago on a tour in Spain with the orchestra’s new principal conductor designate, Kahchun Wong.

The King and I, Dominion Theatre review - welcome return for the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic

January 31, 2024, 8:30 am

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Bartlett Sher's intelligent reading is gorgeously staged and winningly performed

The giant crinolines are back, and the winsome little royal children with miniature temples on their heads, and the glorious songs. The King and I is at the Dominion for a six-week run: how does its storyline look under a 21st century follow-spot?

Cavalleria Rusticana/Aleko, Opera North review - a new foil for Mascagni

February 16, 2024, 12:53 am

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Overlapping casting in two tragedies of infidelity and jealousy

Opera North have a new pairing for Mascagni’s popular but clichéd Cavalleria Rusticana in this double bill: an early Rachmaninov one-acter, written when he was 19. The production of the former is a revival of the one seen in 2017 in their Little Greats season, and its director then, Karolina Sofulak, has returned to create this Aleko alongside it.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Theatre Royal Haymarket review - inventive rollercoaster of a revamp

February 14, 2024, 4:59 am

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Sarah Snook gives a virtuoso performance amid a dazzling display of tech wizardry

Oscar Wilde’s 1890 novella The Picture of Dorian Gray has given the world a trope built for flattery, along the lines of: “You look so young, you must have a portrait growing old in your attic”. But how many who use this line have read the text itself?  

Sargent and Fashion, Tate Britain review - portraiture as a performance

February 23, 2024, 7:25 pm

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London’s elite posing dressed up to the nines

At the turn of the 20th century, London’s smart set queued up to get their portraits painted by American-born artist John Singer Sargent. Sitting for him was a performance, a way to show the world just how rich, glamorous, clever or important you were. And everything – from the pose to the hair, jewellery and clothing – was stage-managed to create the best impression.

Osborne, BBC Philharmonic, Bihlmaier, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - an orchestra at the top of its game

March 11, 2024, 1:20 am

≫ Next: Gillam, Hallé, Poska, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - an experience of colour and fun

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Another Bruckner symphony for the 200th anniversary year

Just a few days after the Hallé’s Bruckner 8, the BBC Philharmonic weighed in with his Seventh Symphony for its Manchester audience. We’re all getting a lot of Bruckner in his 200^th anniversary year, and this was a wise choice, being one of his shorter creations in the genre – only about an hour and 10 minutes in playing time – and containing some of his best melodic ideas and rhythmic inventions.

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Gillam, Hallé, Poska, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - an experience of colour and fun

March 21, 2024, 1:32 am

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★★★★ GILLAM, HALLE. POSKA, MANCHESTER Sensitive shaping from a consummate Estonian

Sensitive shaping from a consummate Estonian

There was a common factor in the superficially disparate elements of this Hallé concert, and it wasn’t just the fact that both soloist and conductor were female. It was an experience of the colours of the music and a sense of enjoyment of what orchestral music offers.

La scala di seta, RNCM review - going heavy on the absinthe?

March 25, 2024, 12:41 am

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★★★★ LA SCALA DI SETA, RNCM Rossini’s one-acter helps young performers find their talents

Rossini’s one-acter helps young performers find their talents to amuse

The overture to Rossini’sLa scala di seta is a frequent and familiar concert piece – not so the opera itself.

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, Marylebone Theatre review - from Russia with love

March 29, 2024, 3:00 am

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Greg Hicks shines as Dostoevsky’s defiantly optimistic dreamer

Like all great literature, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s final, eccentric, playfully wondrous short story seems to have been written just for us – across two centuries and on the other side of the world. It’s a resonance that ripples through Laurence Boswell’s eloquent, beautifully acted and staged, and sweetly optimistic production.  

Underdog: the Other, Other Brontë, National Theatre review - enjoyably comic if caricatured sibling rivalry

April 4, 2024, 11:41 pm

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★★★ UNDERDOG: THE OTHER, OTHER BRONTE, NT Enjoyably comic if caricatured

Gemma Whelan discovers a mean streak under Charlotte's respectable bonnet

The Brontë sisters and their ne'er-do-well brother will always make good copy. The brilliance of the women constrained by life in a Yorkshire parsonage contrasts dramatically with the wild moors around their home, while their early deaths lend romance and tragedy to their life stories. Mythologised they may be, but their strength and determination are indisputable; to be successfully published novelists, albeit to begin with under men's names, was a notable feat.

Carmen, Royal Opera review - strong women, no sexual chemistry and little stage focus

April 6, 2024, 3:20 am

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Damiano Michieletto's new production of Bizet’s masterpiece is surprisingly invertebrate

When will the Royal Opera give us a totally electrifying Carmen, rather than just a vocally perfect Carmen (as Aighul Akhmetshina surely is)? Supposed firebrand Damiano Michieletto’s production is mostly tepid after Barrie Kosky’s half-brilliant take. Kosky didn’t seem to care for his Don José or Micaëla, but as this officer turned smuggler fails to develop and the girl from his village is a plain-Jane cliché, there’s not much improvement on that front.

Simon Boccanegra, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - thrilling, magnificent exploration

April 19, 2024, 12:58 am

≫ Next: Špaček, BBC Philharmonic, Bihlmaier, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - three flavours of Vienna

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Verdi’s original version of the opera brought to exciting life

If ever more evidence were needed of Sir Mark Elder’s untiring zest for exploration and love of the thrill of live opera performance, it was this ground-breaking collaborative event with Opera Rara – a performance coupled to a new studio recording of the original version of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra.

Špaček, BBC Philharmonic, Bihlmaier, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - three flavours of Vienna

April 22, 2024, 1:10 am

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Close attention, careful balancing, flowing phrasing and clear contrast

Billed as a “Viennese Whirl”, this programme showed that there are different kinds of music that may be known to the orchestral canon as coming from Vienna.

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