One of the great advantages of leaving your cabaret debut until you are on the cusp of becoming an octogenarian is that you and you alone alone make the rules. Better yet you owe no one an apology, least of all your audience. The embraceable Anne Reid positively bounced on for her set at the … [Read More]
Edward Seckerson
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Classical music, Opera and Musical Theatre reviews, podcasts, live appearances, and more.
Anne Reid, Crazy Coqs
Ariadne auf Naxos, Glyndebourne (Review)
The Major-Domo promises fireworks during the Prologue of Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s Ariadne auf Naxos. Katharina Thoma, the director of Glyndebourne’s new staging, drops a bombshell – actually several bombshells. Glyndebourne’s wartime history – as a refuge for evacuees – would seem to have chimed with the darker implications of the opera within – namely … [Read More]
Liza on an E, Vaudeville Theatre (Review)
There are those who would argue that Liza (Minnelli, that is) has become so much of a self-parody that the best of her impersonators are actually more convincing than she is. That’s the cynical view, of course, but it is something that crossed my mind on more than a few occasions during Trevor Ashley’s barnstorming … [Read More]
“Wozzeck”, English National Opera, London Coliseum (Review)
If you should take your seats prematurely in the London Coliseum you’ll find yourself confronted with a group of serving British soldiers. You’ll shift a little uneasily under their gaze. There they are, staring, smoking, loitering; there we are, on a visit to the opera. There’s a disconnect. Among those soldiers is Wozzeck (Leigh Melrose), … [Read More]
Briefly… Alison Jiear at the St James Studio
You can take the girl out of Brisbane… Alison Jiear is a riot – a whole lot of woman with a blinder of a voice and the kind of familiarity that they breed in Oz. She and her audience know just how far they can take each other. At one point in her “Under the … [Read More]
Edward Seckerson chats to Lucy Schaufer
Lucy Schaufer has always been one to confound our expectations. As she puts it herself, she’s “an American in London, conceived within the American Dream and living in the Old World.” As an indication of her boundless versatility she’s been seen here in roles as diverse as Claire DeLoone in Bernstein’s On the Town, … [Read More]
Briefly… ENO’s Boheme revisited
Like all the great music theatre pieces you only really see and feel their greatness when the acting is honest, true, and sure. In the case of Puccini’s La Boheme youth is a factor, too, and when that youth is largely home-grown there is double the cause for celebration. Jonathan Miller’s Brassai-inspired staging casts a … [Read More]
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Hannigan, Jurowski, Royal Festival Hall
Vladimir Jurowski deemed this the most challenging of any programme in the South Bank’s year long The Rest is Noise festival and proceeded to tell us precisely why. That his little preamble lasted almost twice as long as the first piece – Webern’s Variations for Orchestra Op.30 – was an indicator of just how scientific … [Read More]
Philharmonia Orchestra, Lugansky, Petrenko, Royal Festival Hall
Liadov crafted more than his fair share of curtain-raisers – but to what end? One might imagine The Enchanted Lake – an atmospheric and beautifully scored miniature – as the prelude to an opera or full-length ballet; there would be method and consequence in that. But as a piece in its own right its six … [Read More]
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