Titanic, Southwark Playhouse (Review)
In years to come we’ll look back on the shrinking (as opposed to sinking) of Titanic as the moment that the heart and soul of Maury Yeston and Peter Stone’s musical epic at last found and touched…
A Conversation With MAURY YESTON
On the day that the “chamber” version of his Tony Award winning show Titanic opens at London’s Southwark Playhouse the loquacious MAURY YESTON – composer of Nine and the “other” Phantom – chats to EDWARD SECKERSON about…
Prom 21: BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Sondergard, Royal Albert Hall (Review)
The “Turning Point” in Colin Matthews’ so named orchestral piece is a change of attitude, a sudden seriousness of purpose, a great effort of will to stop moving and take stock of where it – whatever it…
Prom 20: Wagner “Götterdämmerung”, Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim, Royal Albert Hall (Review)
And so Wotan’s ravens flew home and at the twilight’s last gleaming the immortals were consumed by fire and water. All was finally and irrevocably redeemed by the power of love and the most beautiful of all…
Prom 15: Wagner “Die Walküre”, Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim, Royal Albert Hall (Review)
An evening of high drama: a very public altercation between conductor and concert master, a Wagnerian memory lapse from the leading lady, but one of the most thrilling accounts of Die Walküre you will ever hope to…
Prom 14: Wagner “Das Rheingold”, Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim, Royal Albert Hall (Review)
Senses we didn’t even know we had come alive with the sound of that E-flat sunk so deep in string basses that it can be felt as well as heard. But the frisson we experience as this…
Don Pasquale, Glyndebourne Festival Opera
As Donizetti’s Overture chortles into life the scheming Dr Malatesta spirits us through the chambers of Don Pasquale’s residence, emerging through wardrobes, disappearing through wall paintings, a stealthy and surreal presence. His playthings – the characters in…
Prom 8, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Adès, Royal Albert Hall (Review)
Death becomes him. Enter Thomas Adès, composer, conductor, and now grim reaper. The much-anticipated World Premiere of his Totentanz rolled into the Proms like a black juggernaut, an invitation to the dance that none could resist sitting…
Prom 4, Les Siècles, Roth, Royal Albert Hall (Review)
It could catch on again – the conductor with an ornate staff whacking out the tempo on the podium. At the court of Louis XIV, Jean-Baptiste Lully would have been thus equipped, conductor turning dancing master with…
Prom 1, BBC Symphony Orchestra & Choruses, Oramo (Review)
The 119th season of BBC Proms opened not with a bang but with barely a murmur. A thrumming, like the beating of tiny insect wings, like the hum of summer, looked towards not just the season ahead…
