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New internet treats for the eyes and ears this week. I’m mainly looking for free downloads and streams but there is the occasional event that is charging a little for charity, usually actors’ charities, so I’m including them too. Everything I’ve chosen is designed to allow us to see past the ever-present anger and fear of our current situation and remember the wonder of a world seen through the eyes of the artist. New York City Ballet YouTube.com/nycballet For six weeks, every Tuesday and Friday, starting on April 21st, at 7pm US and midnight UK time, the New York City Ballet are streaming, on their YouTube channel, complete ballets and excerpts from their repertoire. Tuesdays are devoted to works by Balanchine and Robbins, while the Friday presentations are devoted primarily to contemporary works by current choreographers. Each are then available for 72 hours, free of charge. This is a priceless opportunity to see some of the great works of modern ballet, more than twenty of them, all filmed in recent years and with their original dancers. Here is everything from Balanchine’s Allegro Brilliante to Justin Peck’s recent Rotunda, in its world-premiere performance. Some are short promotional films, recorded during live performance, and featuring a bonus of interviews and rehearsal footage with the current crop of world-renowned soloists. English National Ballet www.ballet.org.uk/onscreen/watch-party-broken-wings/ Not to be outdone, the ENB is streaming, April 22nd-24th, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s ballet Broken Wings. Based on the life of painter Frida Kahlo, this is a colourful, dramatic production which was a big hit for the ENB when it premiered in 2016 and hasn’t been revived recently. Starring Tamara Rojo as Frida and Irek Mukhamedov as her husband, the muralist Diego Rivera, the music is by Peter Salem. Also on ENB’s website are a number of excellent workout programmes by members of the ENB including Rojo, that are definitely worth checking out. In addition to standard ballet workouts at several levels, there’s one for Parkinson’s patients, and another for exercise in a chair, all designed to be done in your home. The Frick www.frick.org My favourite museum in all the world is in a townhouse in New York. It’s my favourite not just because of the quality of the work but also because you can get close to it, just as you would in a private house. You can see the paintings as they were meant to be seen, impeccably hung and sensitively placed. There are two famous Holbeins, Sir Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell, for example, one on either side of a fireplace, there’s a genius El Greco of Saint Jerome, the man who translated the bible into the vernacular, above that same fireplace, so personal that you might be able to talk to him at any moment. And there are those three priceless, yet completely approachable, Vermeers, displayed close to one another but not too close so that the viewer can appreciate each one separately and also compare them. It’s not like going to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where it takes an army to get close to them and nothing like the scrum at the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa, the Frick is elegant and quiet, and never too crowded. There is a virtual series which you can tune into on the Frick’s website called Cocktails with the Curator, at 5pm EST (10pm BST) every Friday and subsequently streamed on YouTube, where the Curator takes a fascinating in depth look at one of the Frick’s best known paintings. The Frick is, of course, closed at the moment, but with the benefit of electronica it’s possible to visit on your own. Every room is exquisitely photographed and by clicking the paintings which interest you, you are treated to a description of the work and its artist. You can move around the galleries and vestibules, appreciate the indoor garden, and take in the breadth of taste that informs the choice of works. From all accounts, the industrialist Henry Clay Frick was an awful man but he’s long gone and his beautiful house and its art are still ours to enjoy. Twelfth Night https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/nt-at-home Happy Birthday, Will. The National Theatre production of Twelfth Night begins free streaming this Thursday, April 23rd, Shakespeare’s 456th birthday, at 7pm on the National Theatre’s YouTube channel with Tamsin Grieg as Malvolio or, as the National would have it, Malvolia. This is a startlingly modern gender-bending take on Shakespeare’s great comedy but, unlike so many ‘concept’ productions with meaningless updates, this one actually works. Directed by Simon Godwin, it’s worth a second look, even if you saw it in the theatre. And if you didn’t, click in. The Rockettes
www.instagram.com/therockettes/?dlv-emuid=fe906641-1fb0-46b3-a574-26518964df33&dlv-mlid=39463452 It is simply impossible to be in New York at Christmas without seeing, at least once, the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. Along with the Christmas tree in the skating rink at Rockefeller Center, Christmas isn’t Christmas without The Rockettes, the main attraction of the Christmas Spectacular. For those who’ve never seen them, they are a chorus line of tall female dancers whose claim to fame is their spectacular looks and their unwavering unison. Long lines of high kicks to precisely the same centimetre off the stage are worth all the oohs and aahs. The dance steps aren’t all that difficult, as it happens, but what makes them remarkable is the military specificity of their training and their apparently genuine matching smiles which they can sustain effortlessly through five shows a day. Yes, it gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘five a day’. So what do The Rockettes do when it’s not Christmas? When, for instance, there’s a killer virus running about and all the theatres are closed? They’ve started a weekly workout class on their Instagram feed, every Tuesday at noon (EST) or 5pm (BST), while they’re waiting for Christmas. It’s free and anyone can join in, even if they don’t have endless legs and a lightbulb smile. Met Opera at-Home Gala https://www.metopera.org/season/at-home-gala/?utm_source=OperaStreamsNewsletterW6&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1920_MISC&utm_content=version_A I’m hoping this will be a classier event than the pop version on BBC1 last Sunday where that nice Claudia Winkleman and a man whose name I didn’t catch sat as though marooned in a gigantic overlit turquoise and purple gameshow-type set, introducing some of the biggest names in pop music. Dressed in whatever they wear for cleaning out the garage, the singers sang in their homes and we got to see and hear them via screens on the set. The ones I heard, and I didn’t stay for them all, were appallingly shot, apparently on their cellphones, the audio was worse than the Today Show most mornings, and the entire effect was of an unrehearsed community singalong in a church hall. No matter how well-meaning the presenters and good-hearted the artists, if BBC1 hasn’t got the technical resources, not to mention the taste, to put together a better show than that, they shouldn’t try it. The audience deserves better and, with luck, will get it this coming Saturday, April 25th when the greatest stars of opera – Jonas Kaufmann, Renee Fleming, Bryn Terfel, Elina Garanca, Diana Damrau and others of that ilk, 40 of them from all over the world – perform from their homes on the Metropolitan Opera’s At-Home Gala. The time is 1pm EDT/6pm BST and a lot of time and talent has gone into pre-recording backing musical soundtracks for the singers to perform to while the actual performances will, barring disasters, be sung live. If they can pull this off it will be a terrific achievement, technical and artistic, not to mention a feast of good singing. This is the one online event this week not to be missed even if you’re not an opera lover. While There Is Still Time https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I3Anjw2FEis&feature=share And, finally, this week. Of all the corona-inspired songs, parodies, laments, and poems that have reached my computer this week, and there have been dozens, this is the one that made me weep. It was written by Michele Brourman (music) and Hillary Rollins (lyrics) and sung by the great Maude Maggart, each in their respective American isolations. I promised I would point out that it was composed to support Direct Relief (directrelief.org), a charity that works in the U.S. and internationally to equip doctors and nurses with life-saving medical resources to care for the world's most vulnerable people. But, above all, just listen to the song.
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AuthorRuth Leon is a writer and critic specialising in music and theatre. Archives
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