London Philharmonic Orchestra, Nézet-Séguin, Royal Festival Hall
Music lovers invariably divide into two faction over the Brahms piano concertos: those who thrill to the elemental D minor and those who prefer to bask in the more reflective charms of the sumptuous B-flat Second Concerto.…
Memphis, Shaftesbury Theatre
It’s throwback week with two very different shows recalling the darkest days of America’s racial disharmony – but where The Scottsboro Boys shocks and satirises and has us choke on our own laughter Memphis is content to…
Gypsy, Chichester Festival Theatre
There’s a moment of stunned silence in Imelda Staunton’s storming Mama Rose at the Chichester Festival Theatre, a long, long, moment where neither speaking nor singing she conclusively demonstrates what a difference a great actress makes in…
The Scottsboro Boys, Garrick Theatre
You come away from The Scottsboro Boys sure of two things: that the next Cakewalk you ever hear will induce queasiness; and that the show’s director/choreographer Susan Stroman is some kind of genius. This kick-ass UK premiere,…
The Cherry Orchard, Young Vic
For a play in which inertia, atrophy, indecision, and the inability to move forward are key elements – aren’t they always in Chekhov – Katie Mitchell’s marvelously busy and concentrated staging of The Cherry Orchard fair zips…
The Girl of the Golden West, English National Opera, London Coliseum
Well, there won’t be any complaints about performing this one in English – or should that be American. Thank heavens Richard Jones has made Puccini’s spaghetti western an operatic-home-counties-free-zone and got his cast delivering Kelley Rourke’s translation…
BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers, Litton, Barbican Hall
The problem with programming Charles Ives’ Fourth Symphony – and only the very bold and resourceful and/or the BBC are ever likely to do so – is that it eclipses everything, and I mean everything, in its…
Otello, English National Opera, London Coliseum
It is 30 years ago – but feels like another life – that David Alden first exploded on to English National Opera’s Coliseum stage with his forever notorious cut-price staging of Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa. None of us there…
Prom 64, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Rattle, Royal Albert Hall
They were, of course, applauded on to the platform – all of them – and when at the close Simon Rattle turned to us and said “I think you know this already but there is no audience…
Prom 59, “Elektra”, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bychkov, Royal Albert Hall
How much familial dysfunction and lust – whether for sexual gratification or revenge – can one take in a single weekend? Salome and Elektra back-to back may on paper seem like a feast of divine decadence but…
