Herman/Stewart “Mack & Mabel”, Southwark Playhouse
Jerry Herman’s shows have always been sold as bigger and brasher than in fact they are. His two big hits – Mame and Hello Dolly – will have had something to do with that – their big-sell,…
Prom 13: West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Barenboim, Royal Albert Hall – review
On the evidence of the series so far I doubt anyone was expecting Stravinsky’s favourite Beethoven Symphony – the 8th – to spring from the starting blocks with the kind of propulsive dynamism implicit in the composer’s…
Prom 5: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Mena, Royal Albert Hall – review
Beginning and ending in C major – but only just (Sibelius’ 7th Symphony is the most equivocal C major in music) – this BBC Philharmonic Prom under their new Chief Conductor Juanjo Mena began by reasserting that…
Prom 2: Lerner & Loewe “My Fair Lady”, Royal Albert Hall – review
Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady belongs in that select group of perfect musicals where pretty much every choice, every decision, every song placement simply cannot be disputed. The time-lapsing build to “The Rain in Spain” is…
Verdi “Otello”, Royal Opera House
It is the most resplendent of vocal fanfares that brings Otello to the stage in Verdi’s wonderful opera and Aleksandrs Antonenko – the latest in a most distinguished lineage (including Vickers and Domingo) to have strode into…
The Gershwins’ “Porgy & Bess”, Cape Town Opera, London Coliseum
Behind poster images of iconic black crusaders – from Nelson Mandela to Steve Biko – the township that is Catfish Row is revving up for another day. And such is the pumping dynamism of the Cape Town…
Bryn Fest, Royal Festival Hall
There could be no Bryn Fest (Terfel, that is) without show tunes. But the spectacle of the great Welsh bass-baritone arriving on stage sporting a wrap-around “Madonna” mic is not one I care to repeat in a…
Mozart “Le nozze di Figaro”, Glyndebourne Festival Opera
It’s the age of long hair and raging hormones, wide lapels and wider collars, the age of new found “permissiveness” where the world and his dog are gagging for some extra-curricular congress and the great and good…
Albarn & Norris “Dr Dee”, English National Opera
A blackbird descends, Damon Albarn sings of England, and a cavalcade of our national identity – from punk rocker to city gent, cricket to morris dancing, suffragettes to Lord Nelson – passes before our eyes, each representative…
Britten “Billy Budd”, English National Opera
The sight of Kim Begley’s old and broken Captain Vere silently mouthing Billy Budd’s death sentence as it is read out in the final scene of Britten’s opera will be one of the enduring images of David…