Australian Boys Choir - Austrian Encounters Click here for tickets Australian Boys Choir - Austrian Encounters (VIC) (australiandigitalconcerthall.com) I chose this one for the picture, of course. The boys are just too cute to ignore but, if you actually watch the programme, they can sing too. They’re members of The Australian Boys Choir and for this concert, on period instruments, they will join with The Vocal Consort and the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra to present some of the finest 18th century choral repertoire. It includes Mozart’s Spatzenmesse and also works by fraternal composers Joseph and Michael Haydn, conducted by Nicholas Dinopoulos. Soloists include - Soprano Suzanne Shakespeare, Contralto Emily Bauer-Jones - Tenor Henry Choo and Baritone Stephen Marsh. This is a livestream on May 22 but all digital tickets come with 72-hour viewing starting from the morning after the concert so you can watch it from anywhere. May 22, 3:00PM (AEST) Digital Ticket: $24 Rice - Cloud Gate Dance Theatre Click here for tickets Here’s a really exciting dance production from a Taiwanese company which is now celebrating its 40th anniversary. The Cloud Gate Dance Theatre takes grain, field, and flower as verdant muse in this celebration of the life cycle and natural beauty of Taiwan’s essential crop. Dramatically poised against stunning video vistas of the Chihshang growing region, 24 dancers cross-pollinate modern dance and martial arts, ballet and qigong to become wind-rippled paddies, erotic agents of springtime germination, and fire walkers returning scorched seed to soil. Wielding bamboo sticks, recast as field implement, slender stalk, and weapon, they prod the seasons and coax valley rains as Taiwanese folk songs and Bellini arias waft in the wind. Lin Hwai-min is the choreographer and the production is directed by Chao Tang Chang. Stunning. Death of England – National Theatre Click here for tickets The National Theatre has just released this devastating play online. It has a wonderful performance from Rafe Spall. A family in mourning. A man in crisis. After the death of his dad, Michael is powerless and angry. In a state of heartbreak, he confronts the difficult truths about his father’s legacy and the country that shaped him. At the funeral, unannounced and unprepared, Michael decides it is time to speak. Rafe Spall performs this fearless one-person play which asks explosive and enduring questions about identity, race and class in Britain. It is written by Roy Williams and Clint Dyer, the first black British artists to have performed, written and directed a full-scale production at the National Theatre. One asks, what took them so long? Aspen Armchair Concerts Click here to watch AMFS Virtual Stage. Throughout the pandemic and beyond, the Aspen Music Festival and School have been presenting a series of excellent solo recitals online. There are two more this week, on Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, the violinist William Hagen, long associated with Aspen in the summer, is the winner of an Aspen Conducting Academy concerto competition and a popular soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician across the United States, Europe, and Asia. This wide-ranging and virtuosic programme includes some of the best repertoire the violin has to offer, from Bach’s Partita No. 2 for Unaccompanied Violin to works by Ernst, "Die letzte Rose" (The Last Rose of Summer), Donald Grantham Black-Eyed Suzy, in D minor, and Ysaye’s G Major Sonata for Unaccompanied Violin. On Tuesday, something completely different. Saxophone player, Andrew Dahlke’s programme is called Bach, Poetry, and the Greater American Experience. Can’t wait. These concerts are free to watch and, although they are live in North America at 6pm Mountain Time on Monday and Tuesday, each will be viewable for three days thereafter on the AMFS Virtual Stage. Triple Threats - Broadway, Jazz & Soul Click here for tickets Harold Sanditen’s Open Mic Highlights Select Your Tickets - FANE (artist-tix.com) My friend Harold Sanditon runs the most successful Open Mic in the UK and sometimes his regular drop-in shows throw up a real talent. In this case it seems to have yielded three young singers, unrelated, who have emerged from the pack and about whom he is really excited, Ava Nicole Frances, Anaïs Reno, and Eliza Leng, whom he has dubbed Triple Threats. I’m not familiar with them but Harold says, “This is your chance to see three insanely talented young women, all of whom are blazing trails in their chosen fields of Broadway, jazz, and soul. One is from San Francisco, one is from New York City, and one is from London. On Demand May 17/24 £10 ($13) Between The Rooms – Los Angeles Opera Click here to watch Between the Rooms | LA Opera Star ballet dancers, Alina Cojucaru and Matthew Ball, both Principal Dancers with the Royal Ballet, perform in this intense, deeply moving and unusual short film by director/choreographer Kim Brandstrup. It showcases composer Anna Clyne's musical setting of poetry by Emily Dickinson. Between the Rooms is a poignant meditation on solitude, featuring these two internationally celebrated ballet dancers, the extraordinary Alina Cojocaru and Matthew Ball, the soprano, Joélle Harvey, as vocal soloist and members of the Brooklyn-based orchestra The Knights, conducted by Eric Jacobsen. Pocket Review The Breach – Hampstead Theatre Jude and Acton’s father has fallen from a high building. His teenage children play a bizarre game in which they imagine what he was thinking as he fell to his death. Jude, at 16, works nights and weekends to pay the bills, and is a tiger in defence of her brother,14-year old Acton. At school, two older boys protect him from bullying but, in return, require the use of their basement as a meeting place for their club. The consequences of what they do in their club will not become clear for fourteen years. What happened the night of Jude's 17th birthday party is eventually revealed and it isn't as big a surprise as it should be. In fact, nothing is. What should be shocking revelations of rape, violence and the betrayal of trust, with their inevitable longterm effects on their characters' lives are undermined by flat writing and the static production by Sarah Frankcom. Award-winning American playwright Naomi Wallace’s play takes place in two timeframes with two casts playing the same characters as teenagers and as adults. A competant cast is unable to save a play seemingly deserted by its production.
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AuthorRuth Leon is a writer and critic specialising in music and theatre. Archives
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