Agrippina, Royal Opera House Joyce DiDonato as Agrippina and Franco Fagioli as Nerone - (C) ROH 2019. Photo by Bill Cooper By Paul Levy Among my regrets is that I am old enough to have seen and heard Maria Callas perform at Covent Garden, but young enough at the time to feel I could not afford the tickets. It goes some way to make up for this lapse that I have … [Read more...]
Iris would have been 100 last month
Photograph of John Bayley and Iris Murdoch by Derry Moore, 29 September 1992 It’s difficult to remember when I first met Iris and John – in my experience, they were inseparable. I am certain we met in the late summer of 1968 at the Oxford house in Charlbury Road of Lord and Lady David Cecil– though it’s just possible that we had met earlier, in 1963, with a gaggle of Oxford philosophers at a … [Read more...]
30th anniversary treats at Garsington Opera
We opera lovers are blessed by having two world-class rural opera companies in easy driving distance of Oxford and the Cotswolds. I’ve missed Longborough this year, and the first instalment of the new Ring cycle they are creating, but hope to catch up, if I’m spared, in 2020. Thanks to the thoughtful and kind efforts of Clare Adams, the outgoing … [Read more...]
Hot Nights at the Barbican
The hottest tickets in London last Saturday coincided with the hottest day in London for at least forty years. Both events were at the Barbican Arts Centre, which now has some claims to being one of the world’s best and most lively arts venues. Despite the spectacular traffic, the near-impossibility of navigating that area of London to find the sole entrance to the vast Barbican car … [Read more...]
Let’s Twist Again: partying with the Don and the Donald
The first two new productions in Garsington Opera’s 30th anniversary season both feature wild parties with lots of on-stage dancing. Smetana’s The Bartered Bride somehow combines1950s dancing, from the era when partners gestured at each other separately (and sexily, we innocently thought then), more often than they actually held one another, with Czech folk-dance. But it’s the title, not the … [Read more...]
Ducking Donald, The Aftermath: “NHS on the Table”
During his State Visit, President Trump said yesterday that, when it comes to the “phenomenal” trade deal that he wants to do with the UK, “everything is on the table.” This includes our National Health Service. My own recent experience makes me hope fervently that we will not agree to privatise or sell off any of our NHS. I have the good luck … [Read more...]
Chancing upon the Aurora Borealis
Are you green with envy at James Lasdun’s long account of chasing and experiencing the Northern Lights in Norway and Finland in the 29 April 2019 New Yorker? I could certainly have done with the commission –thirty-five years ago. But I have to allow that it was purely by chance that I saw the Aurora Borealis on the 23rd or 24th of June 1984. I might even then have been a bit … [Read more...]
John Cornford, the tragedy of a faithful communist
Understand the Weapon, Understand the Wound: Collected Writings Edited by Jonathan Galassi Fyfield Books, Carcanet, 238pp., $14.99 The Spanish parliament voted in September 2018 to exhume the remains of Francisco Franco, and to remove the remains of the fascist dictator from the site of the giant mausoleum at the Valley of the Fallen, near Madrid, which also contains the bodies of tens of … [Read more...]
Close Cousins to Sculpture? Stephen Buckley’s Work Needs All Three Dimensions
Étaples (1995) A couple of the essays in the gorgeous book (published by Neuendorf) that accompanies Close Cousins, an exhibition of Stephen Buckley paintings at the smart Mayor Gallery (Cork Street, London, until 8 February), make the point that Buckley is not a household name. Well, he is in our household, where we have whole walls of works on paper by the painter, who now … [Read more...]
The Tell-Tale Horror of Christmas
David Carlyle and Tamara Lawrence (photo Manuel Harlan) Non-Brits find it hard to believe, but in addition to the tree, holly, mistletoe, turkey, plum pudding, watching the Queen’s speech and drinking far too much, ghost stories are a part of (at least) English Christmas traditions, as much as the pantomime. If this startles you, just think of the spectres in Dickens’ 1843 A Christmas Carol, … [Read more...]