Prom 58, “Salome”, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Runnicles, Royal Albert Hall
It has been said many times (and by Strauss himself) that the title role of Strauss’ Salome requires at least two different voices. Nina Stemme has both of them. And so seamlessly, artfully, are they rolled into…
Prom 50: Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Weilerstein, Belohlavek, Royal Albert Hall
Even as orchestras began to sound more and more alike, there was the Czech Philharmonic. And many of its notable characteristics remain to this day: a modest, homespun, quality, warm and engaging and full of bright-eyed distinction…
Prom 47, Britten War Requiem, CBSO, BBC Proms Youth Choir, Nelsons, Royal Albert Hall
Nothing has resonated through the unfolding First World War commemorations than the poetry of Wilfred Owen; and in terms of its grim immediacy and enduring heartbreak nothing ever could. Benjamin Britten knew that when he set down…
Prom 43: BBC Symphony Orchestra, Skride, Gardner, Royal Albert Hall
The Russians were coming – and the prospect of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, even without the added attraction of hearing it in Igor Buketoff’s questionable choral arrangement where the Tsarist hymn is taken at its word and does…
Dogfight, Southwark Playhouse
The movie slipped through my net, the musical comes to Europe – more specifically the Southwark Playhouse – laden with Off-Broadway awards, including the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical. You can see why. There is conspicuous…
Prom 31: Hallé, Coote, Elder, Royal Albert Hall
The levels of refinement now exhibited by the Hallé, the stylishness and elegance of the playing, is alone a measure of the special relationship that they and Mark Elder have cemented over the last decade and a…
Prom 28: BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers (Men’s voices), BBC Symphony Chorus (Men’s voices), Oramo, Royal Albert Hall
All kinds of narratives at play in this Sakari Oramo/ BBC Symphony Orchestra Prom – and perhaps the truly adventurous programmer might have double-deployed Rory Kinnear – dispassionately chronicling Stravinsky’s Oedipus rex – and taken us beyond…
A Streetcar Named Desire, Young Vic
The first thing one needs to grasp about A Streetcar Named Desire – and director Benedict Andrews has seized hungrily upon it in his unnerving staging at the Young Vic – is Tennessee Williams’ sense of the…
Amadeus, Chichester Festival Theatre
Peter Shaffer has always been a big ideas man and the curse laid upon Antonio Salieri that he and he alone should recognise the genius of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart while all around him – not least himself…
La Traviata, Glyndebourne
Images of Violetta taken to her bed or receding like a ghostly mirage into an eternity of solitude preface and conclude scene after scene of Tom Cairns splendid new staging at Glyndebourne. Designer Hildegard Bechtler has created…
