A Conversation With KERRY ELLIS
At the busy junction between studio sessions for her new album (Brian May in attendance, naturally), an arena tour of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds, and her first “intimate” cabaret date at the Hippodrome’s new Matcham…
Martinu “Julietta”, English National Opera – Review ****
Julietta. The name is spelt out across the front cloth in the shifting body shapes of a sleeping figure – Michel Lepic, a bookseller (Peter Hoare). He stirs where the final “A” should be and with a…
Adam Guettel and friends
Extraordinary to see the grandson of Richard Rodgers stroll over to a microphone in the Hippodrome’s Matcham Room and start in with the “country scat” of his first masterpiece Floyd Collins. More extraordinary still to hear it…
Routledge and I Guildford bound
Traveling with my star, Patricia Routledge, to the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford tomorrow, Tuesday. I gather they are rehearsing a Gilbert & Sullivan onstage until 3. Routledge was an unforgettable Ruth in the marvelous Joseph Papp…
The Bjork of the lieder world
I first came across Helena Juntunen in an Osmo Vanska concert at the South Bank. She sang Sibelius – and she sang it with such engagement and power, such rapture, that I came out at the interval…
The Last Night of the Proms – Review ****
Brittania always rules on the Last Night of the Proms – but in this Olympic year she really ruled. I’m still puzzled as to why they couldn’t find a home-grown Olympic Fanfare and not one recycled from…
Prom 75: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Haitink, Royal Albert Hall – Review ****
The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra can play Haydn’s last symphony – No 104 “London” – in its sleep but that is not, I hasten to add, the impression one wants to take away from any performance of it…
A Conversation With SARAH CONNOLLY
Thursday 8th November 2012 5.45pm, Queen Elizabeth Hall Pre-performance conversation with Sarah Connolly, as part of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s Queens, Heroines, and Ladykillers: French Exchange series… [Read More]
The Artistry of Maria Friedman and Jason Carr finally ignites the Hippodrome’s new Matcham Room – review
It’s taken a while for the Hippodrome’s spanking new cabaret room to feel lived-in and alive and it’s taken a real artist – actually two real artists – to capitalise on its intimacy and generate a buzz.…
Prom 69: Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Chailly – Review ****
A grim logic pervaded the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra’s second Prom. Messiaen’s Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum effectively begins where Mahler’s 6th Symphony ends – from the lowest of the lowest depths. Two bass tubas sound the death knell…