Arabella – Salzburg Click here for tickets This ravishing production of Richard Strauss’s Arabella from the Salzburg Festival is the best reason this week to join Medici.tv. or at least to take advantage of Medici’s 7-day free trial. Richard Strauss’s Arabella with Renee Fleming and Thomas Hampson in the lead roles, was staged by Florentine Klepper at the 2014 Salzburg Festival. This masterpiece of lyric comedy, the last in a long series of collaborations between Strauss and librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal, is conducted here by the festival’s artistic director, Christian Thielemann. In a sumptuous fin-de-siecle decor designed by Martina Segna, Klepper's direction immerses us in the atmosphere of late 19th-century Vienna, further brought to life by the elegant costumes of Anna Sofie Tuma. The impeccable vocal cast includes a pitch-perfect Renée Fleming in the title role giving what the newspaper El Pais’ music critic called a "master class of vocal style … simply amazing". Thomas Hampson is "reserved and delicate" as her lover Mandryka, and Hanna-Elisabeth Müller as Arabella's sister Zdenka, joins Fleming for the famous sisters' duet. Directed by Brian Large. The Secets of the Milkmaid – Vermeer - Rijksmuseum Click here for Part One Click here for Part Two Click here for Part Three In common with thousands of others, I was too late to nab a ticket to the once-in-a-lifetime exhibition of Vermeer paintings at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam last year. It sold out in nano-seconds and those who saw it are still raving about it. Those who didn’t, like me, are still muttering darkly under their breath. Fortunately, since there are so few remaining Vermeer paintings, those still extant are studied and studied and studied from every perspective and point of view. and the results of these studies are often fascinating viewing. Scientists have been studying The Milkmaid for centuries, but what mysteries does it still hold? Rijksmuseum researchers have been working with the Mauritshuis in The Hague and the University of Antwerp, studying all the Vermeer paintings in the Netherlands. In these videos you can see just some of the results. The story is in three parts, hence three links. Bye (Ajo) – Silvie Guillem Click here to rent BYE (AJÖ) is a dance film choreographed and directed by the acclaimed Swedish choreographer Mats Ek, set to Beethoven's last piano sonata, Opus 111. It is a poignant self-reflective solo made for and performed by the inimitable ballerina, Sylvie Guillem. According to the choreographer, it is about a woman who, in leaving a certain stage in her life, starts a conversation with herself that leads to new experiences. Silvie Guillem is now 58 years old, unimaginably “past it” for a ballet dancer and yet, here she is, in a new work expressly made for her by one of the world’s most famous and innovative choreographers. She joined the corps de blllet of the Paris Opera Ballet at 16, and at 19 became an ‘etoile’ which is what the French charmingly call their top female dancers,. Unusually tall for a ballerina (en pointe she was more than 6ft tall), there was always a hunt for a good male dancer who was tall enough to dance with her. In her very long career – most star ballet dancers retire in their early 30s – she has danced all the great ballet roles with all the great male dancers from Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov (much too short for her) to her favourite French partner, Laurent Hilaire, and, since she stopped performing classical ballets, has worked with many of the world’s top modern choreographers – Akram Khan, Russell Maliphant, William Forsythe – usually, as here, in works made for her. She left Paris to become Principal Guest Artiste with the Royal Ballet but it wasn’t an easy relationship and she became known as “Mademoiselle Non” for her regular refusals to dance anything she had not personally chosen. Silvie Guillem remains, at 58, a stunning dancer whose unrivalled technique, beautiful line and body flexibility still allow her to express the full range of her emotions. It can be rented from Prime Video for $4.49 or purchased for £9.99. Rentals include 30 days to start watching this video and 48 hours to finish once started. The Effect – National Theatre Click here for tickets There are fashions in stage direction as in everything else. Only when you’ve seen several plays by the same director can you begin to recognise their individual obsessions. Ah yes, you say, Ivo Van Hove is the one who uses live videographers filming the action and projects the video onstage in real time, ignoring the text of whatever classic play he’s directing. (See All About Eve). And isn’t Katie Mitchell the one who inserts ballroom dancing into almost every production, even those set in times when it hadn’t been invented, such as the Greek tragedies? (See Iphigenia). And aren’t her actors often directed to play in near-dark with their backs to the audience? (See The Seagull) And what about Jamie Lloyd? Isn’t he the one who strips the play of all and any distractions? His productions usually have no sets or costumes, no sense of period, just the actors and the words. See (Hamlet and Cyrano). Lucy Prebble’s The Effect at the National is, like all Jamie Lloyd’s productions, relentlessly modern and lacking any accompanying visual stimulation. It’s a relief to note that it’s set in the present or near future and therefore doesn’t need to be robbed of its period or theatrical trimmings like Sunset Blvd or Cyrano. The Effect is a morality tale disguised as a medical mystery wrapped in a love story about two young volunteers in a clinical drug trial. The supervising doctors have the unenviable task of working out whether their sudden and intoxicating chemistry is real, or a side effect of the new antidepressant they’re there to test. This somewhat cool plot, heated by the fire between the two young people, poses startling dilemmas when considering the ethics of how new drugs get to be tested, developed, and delivered to the public. The unmissable Paapa Essiedu who seemed to be up and coming only moments ago, is now fully up and arrived, and is here paired with Taylor Russell in this funny and intimate examination of love and ethics. They have nothing to work with but the play itself and Jamie Lloyd’s total conviction that this is all they need. Van Hove is now focused on deconstructing operas. His latest, Kurt Weill’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, was a great success at the Flemish Opera Antwerp/Ghent. His version of West Side Story, however, was not. Katie Mitchell is currently a Professor of Theatre Directing at the University of London where her uncompromising modernistic style is much appreciated. Jamie Lloyd’s Sunset Boulevard is heading for Broadway. The National Theatre is being coy about releasing this play worldwide so it may not yet be available in the United States but, be patient, it soon will be. Spitfire – an advertisement divertissement - New Adventures (Funniest Ballet Spoof of All Time) Click here to watch Before his legendary Swan Lake, Nutcracker! and Cinderella, in 1988 Matthew Bourne created his first hit, Spitfire, and it rapidly became a signature piece. This hilarious work places the most famous nineteenth-century ballet showstopper ‘Pas De Quatre’ in the world of men’s underwear advertising. Both a celebration of male vanity and an affectionate comment on the preening grandeur of the danseur noble, Spitfire was last performed in 2012. Here it is seen in the expanded 6-man version performed by New Adventures principal dancers, with slightly adapted choreography to suit these socially distanced times. For reasons I don’t understand, the video cuts out abruptly just before the end in every available version I’ve screened. Never mind, there’s plenty here to give you the idea and marvel at the immense artistry and the wicked sense of humour that is Matthew Bourne’s Spitfire. There are many contenders for the winner of the Funniest Ballet Spoof of All Time but Spitfire, even in truncated form, has my vote.
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AuthorRuth Leon is a writer and critic specialising in music and theatre. Archives
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