Though a fan of Robert Harris’s fiction, I have to confess that I’ve not read his Cicero trilogy. That’s probably because I had insufficient exposure to Cicero during the many years I did Latin at my Kentucky high school. (Indeed, I have the impression that my father, at more or less the same schools, was much better grounded in the classics.) Of course, I’ve had to translate snippets of … [Read more...]
The Tempest-Tost Find a Home (at Stratford-upon-Avon)
In 1993 I was lucky enough to see Simon Russell Beale, then a sprightly 32-year-old, play Ariel in Sam Mendes’ Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Tempest. Last week, at the RSC in Stratford, we saw the 55-year-old Russell Beale’s Prospero, directed by Gregory Doran. This new staging has been done in collaboration with Intel, and is replete with digital bells and whistles, which … [Read more...]
Groundhog Day, the (Buddhist) Musical
Intelligence is not exactly the first quality you look for in a musical. Of course there have been a few intelligent examples of the genre – mostly by Stephen Sondheim, and I’ll concede that there are a few intelligent, or at least witty instances of musical theatre from Cole Porter, Oscar Hammerstein, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Kurt Weill and the Gershwin brothers. Even … [Read more...]
Country House Opera: Music and the Love of Food
[contextly_auto_sidebar] 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 … [Read more...]
Don lovable (but three-quarters mad)
By a coincidence that is actually no such thing, but accidents of calendar-changing and record-keeping, on April 23rd this year we mark the 400th anniversary of the deaths of two giants of literature, William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes. It is both wonderful and somehow generous of the Royal Shakespeare Company to have marked the occasion by commissioning a new adaptation of Don … [Read more...]
Mendelssohn: it’s the sound of Shakespeare
There’s a bit of critical dissension about Garsington Opera’s collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company on A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Getty estate at Wormsley (and going on to Stratford-upon-Avon and the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London). I found it completely enchanting (though my wife did not). The first of several joint ventures for the Garsington company – next year they’re doing … [Read more...]