Don Giovanni – San Francisco Opera Click here for tickets I’d love to tell you that my bitter complaints to the San Francisco Opera about how my international readers couldn’t access their wonderful livestreamed productions because they didn’t start until 2am UK time, they immediately changed their minds, and, as a direct result of my complaints from over the sea, they are now livestreaming at a reasonable hour so we can all see them. But I can’t. I don’t know what caused this splendid turnabout but something did, and this girl isn’t going to ask any questions that might cause them to change their minds again. Director Michael Cavanagh's new production of Don Giovanni is the third and final chapter of San Francisco Opera’s multi-year Mozart-Da Ponte Trilogy, presenting all three operatic collaborations by Mozart and poet Lorenzo Da Ponte. The international cast is headed by Etienne Dupuis as Don Giovanni, Adela Zaharia as Donna Anna and Nicole Car as Donna Elvira, all in Company debuts: Christina Gansch (Zerlina), Luca Pisaroni (Leporello), Amitai Pati (Don Ottavio), Cody Quattlebaum (Masetto) and Soloman Howard (Commendatore). Parisian conductor Bertrand de Billy makes his Company debut conducting the 1788 Vienna version of the score. The SF Opera Mozart-Da Ponte Trilogy launched in 2019 with the production of The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro) set in America’s early postcolonial period when the American house setting and the nation itself were newly founded. The narrative arc continued in November 2021 with Cosi fan Tutte, in which Cavanagh’s “richly inventive touch” moved the action to the 1930s where the house has been converted into a country club and the characters find themselves at moral crossroads. The director and his creative team of set and projection designer Erhard Rom, costume designer Constance Hoffman and lighting designer Jane Cox conclude their vision for the trilogy with Don Giovanni, set 150 years after the previous installment in an uncertain future where the house and society are crumbling. The livestream is available from June 12 at 2 pm PT and thereafter on demand for 48 hours. It’s a great cast, don’t miss it. Tickets are $25 Lonely Town, Lonely Street – Rambert Stream Lonely Town, Lonely Street | Marquee TV Click here for tickets Bill Withers’ songs are the musical setting and inspiration for this rather grim but passionately performed ballet about lonely people in a large city. Andrew Storer's designs, with fire escapes and overspilling dustbins, suggest a seedy district of an American city. Rambert Dance Company give an electrifying performance in this studio recording of Robert North's jazz ballet. Robert North was Associate Choreographer of Ballet Rambert 1975-1981 and became its Artistic Director in 1981. He made Lonely Town, Lonely Street on the Company in the same year. It was way ahead of its time and prefigured the grittier works of Mark Morris and Matthew Bourne, such as The Car Man. Bill Withers, William Harrison Withers Jr., was an American singer-songwriter and musician. He had several hits over a career spanning 18 years, including "Ain't No Sunshine", "Grandma's Hands", "Use Me", "Lean on Me", "Lovely Day" and "Just the Two of Us". Withers won three Grammy Awards and was nominated for six more. Fit For a Queen - Jubilee Exhibition at the National Gallery Click here to watch Fit for a Queen: Symbols and Values of Sovereignty is a a virtual exhibition of some 28 iconic paintings at the National Gallery which we can visit on our screens to celebrate Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Queen Elizabeth II is the longest reigning monarch in British history. She has witnessed many changes of government and has advised no fewer than 14 successive Prime Ministers. This year, she became the first British monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee, commemorating 70 years of service. To mark this unprecedented milestone, the National Gallery has brought together 28 paintings from its collection that shed light on the notion of queenship, including portraits of female rulers from different times and countries as well as images that relate to some of the attributes most frequently associated with female monarchs past and present. Just The Way You Are – Billy Joel Click here to watch Maybe you have to be very old, like me, to appreciate this. Or maybe not. My friend Adele sent it to me and appended the comment that she’s a softie. Well, listening to this, who wouldn’t be? It’s Billy Joel when very young, before we realised exactly who and what he was, singing one of his early hits, Just The Way You Are, one of the greatest pop songs of all time, everybody’s choice for the first dance at their wedding. Or it was, a long time ago. This recording is from The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1978. And does anyone know who that sensational tenor sax player is? The old songs are the best and this one still works for this old softie. Pocket Review Britannicus – Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith
Playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker has done a spectacular job translating and adapting Racine’s Roman tragedy for a contemporary audience. Instead of our usual view of the Emperor Nero as mad, bad and extremely dangerous to know from birth, this adaptation shows how he got that way. Guided by Agrippina, his appalling and insanely ambitious mother, isolated in his palace, and coddled by courtiers without conscience, it is possible to see how a spoilt brat turned into a monster. The acting from the entire company is strong, especially from Sirina Saba as the vicious designer-clad Agrippina and William Robinson as a directionless teenager who happens to have become Emperor of Rome thanks to a mother who has edged out the rightful heir, Britannicus (Nathaniel Curtis, excellent), in his favour. As Agrippina’s hold on her son loosens, Nero becomes increasingly deranged, ending up, inevitably, playing the lyre (violin) while the stage is suffused in red light so we must assume that Rome is burning. If it’s not, it should be. The production, by Atri Banerjee, is simultaneously stripped-down and overly fussy. The entire sparse cast sits on the many chairs which, together with a water cooler, comprise the entire set and which are constantly moved about to no great purpose. The actors distractingly stay on stage even when they are not part of the action of the play, as though they are in a dentist’s waiting room, and, apparently because the director wants us to know what an unstable and frightening place Nero’s Rome is, he has them all, from time to time, judder, shake, crawl across the floor, fall down in horror, and wander about at the back of the stage, and then calmly sit back down on a chair to await their next entrance. A 'director's concept' production. There is much to admire here, not much to enjoy.
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AuthorRuth Leon is a writer and critic specialising in music and theatre. Archives
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