Briefly… Falstaff, Glyndebourne Festival Opera
It’s a world of girl guides, animatronic cats, and cabbages. Ford’s garden apparently yields nothing else. And whilst the flat surfaces and wonky perspectives of designer Ultz’ sets aren’t too prepossessing in themselves they serve the child…
Anne Reid, Crazy Coqs
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…
A Conversation With SUSAN BULLOCK
Thursday 30th May 2013 7.30pm INSIGHT EVENT at the Royal Opera House, Clore Studio … [Read More]
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…
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,…
“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…
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…
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…
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…
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;…