Young Chekhov A bit of a sucker for aesthetic marathons, there’s nothing I like better than taking a whole week out of one’s life to hear and see Wagner’s Ring; Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach had me avid for tickets; a painter’s late-career retrospective is usually my kind of show; and from the sublimity of Proust, and at least some of the 12 volumes of Anthony … [Read more...]
Is Brexit Doomed? European Music & (Little) English Country House Festivals Dispel the Gloom
We’re suffering post-Brexit gloom, and disappointment at the cabinet appointments made by the new Prime Minister. (Who is Matt Hancock, the new Minister for Culture? I don’t recall ever seeing or hearing of the MP for West Suffolk at the theatre, opera or at a gallery.) As for Mrs May’s major choices of the interesting David Davis, the dreadful Liam Fox and bonkers Boris Johnson to … [Read more...]
His Kingdom for a Horse: Another Bad Brexit Deal?
The Almeida Theatre is one of the wonders of North London – a little theatre that has had a costly makeover, leaving the uncomfortable seating untouched, but still attracting high-paid Hollywood stars to work for relatively tiny fees. Why? The Almeida’s current Artistic Director is Rupert Goold, still the hottest director in town, which is at least half the explanation. Actors want to … [Read more...]
How an Operatic Sow’s Ear Becomes a Silk Purse at Wormsley
Director Tim Albery and conductor Tobias Ringborg’s production of Mozart’s Idomeneo for Garsington Opera at Wormsley transforms this operatic sow’s ear into a silk purse. By tightening up the story, cutting down the recitative but adding music from the Anhang, the appendix to the published edition, they have restructured the youthful composer’s flabby piece. In a “conversation” in the programme, … [Read more...]
82 Portraits, One Still-Life, and a Few Nice Loans – Is This the Future of Exhibitions?
Two thought-provoking exhibitions have just opened in London. At the Sackler Gallery of the RA are “82 Portraits and One Still-life by David Hockney”; and at the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery, “Painters’ Paintings: from Freud to Van Dyck.” Each of these is at least slightly novel, and indicative of changes that must be afoot in the art world. None of Hockney’s 82 portraits … [Read more...]
Prelude to Wagner
Photo: Catherine Ashmore for ENO In the round of summer opera festivals (I am so lucky as to have two world-class local ones, Garsington and Longborough) the first to come up as Garsington’s Rossini, L’italiana in Algeri. It was most notable for its striking sets, by George Souglides. But not entirely in a good way. The gilded columns and Moorish arches stage right were … [Read more...]
What’s Happening Here? The Enigmatic Bhupen Khakhar
Bhupen Khakhar: You Can’t Please All Tate Modern until 6 November 2016 Tate Modern is holding the first international retrospective of the interesting Indian artist Bhupen Khakhar (1934-2003). Their publicity says something that is obviously true, that this painter “played a central role in modern Indian art,” but also makes the larger claims that Khakhar “was also a key … [Read more...]
Country House Opera: Music and the Love of Food
With its large orchestra and very large chorus, Eugene Onegin is Garsington Opera’s most ambitious production in its twenty-eight seasons. Conducted by the company’s artistic director, Douglas Boyd, and directed by Michael Boyd (no relation), artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 2002-2012, and with large-scale sets by Tom Piper, also a veteran of the RSC (as well as the designer … [Read more...]
Despite AA – Don’t Avoid People, Places & Things
The National Theatre and Headlong’s production of Duncan Macmillan’s new play, People, Places & Things, has got a well-merited transfer to the West End at Wyndham’s Theatre, with a stunning central performance by Denise Gough that has got the never superlative-shy London critics over-excited. It is a gruelling role, with Ms Gough scarcely off stage for two and a half hours and even, … [Read more...]
Towards the Perfect Identification of Matter and Form, but More Myth than Man?
"He is typical of that aspiration of all the arts towards music," wrote Pater of Giorgione. “In the Age of Giorgione” at the upstairs Sackler Gallery of the Royal Academy (until 5 June) is a specific view of Venetian Renaissance painting and drawing (excepting one relief sculpture) in the first decade of the sixteenth century, limited (mostly) to works that have sometimes been … [Read more...]