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WHAT’S NEW THIS WEEK? I love this job. I get to spend most of every week looking for, and finding, the wonderful things artists are doing to keep themselves from despair while they’re not working at the art they’ve spent a lifetime learning how to do superbly well – the plays, the music, the comedy – and I’m overwhelmed by how little self-pity I encounter. Everybody I know is busy, doing something they probably wouldn’t have been doing six months ago, but what is emerging is an entirely new artform, an online discipline that’s being invented while we’re watching. I’m also having fun finding things I vaguely remember, but haven’t thought about for years, and revisiting them in order to share them here. Like this, for example. Tribute to Bernstein at 70/Lauren Bacall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRB-HP9rPGQ. In August 1988, Leonard Bernstein, undoubtedly the most notable musical presence of the 20th century, and one of the few genuine geniuses I have ever known, turned 70 with a series of galas, concerts and events, culminating in a party, introduced by Beverly Sills, where all his friends did a turn. And, believe me, that was some party. It was held at Tanglewood, Bernstein’s summer concert home and absolutely everybody was there, in person or on film. The entire event is available on YouTube but it’s more than four hours long and a bit exhausting for anyone not a guaranteed Bernstein nut. So, here’s just my favourite bit. Stephen Sondheim, who was the lyricist for Bernstein’s West Side Story, wrote this parody of The Saga of Jenny renamed for the guest of honour, ''with no apologies to Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin,'' It’s full of clever rhymes and knowing insights about ‘Lenny’s’ famous indecisiveness and sung with considerable verve by one of his best friends, Lauren Bacall. Ten Minutes to Call Home – Live Theatre https://www.live.org.uk/now-online-10-minutes-tocall-home?utm_source=Master+List&utm_campaign=d48bc2ac77-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_5_25_2018_20_58_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_087289d63a-d48bc2ac77-202441125 Live theatre has released their 10 Minutes To... Call Home. It’s a series of free to watch online performances. Nine short plays created and produced for online viewing from a call out for new writing. Uneven, both in acting and writing, but, hey, each is only ten minutes long and you can always click out of the ones you don’t care for. Metropolitan Opera – Donizetti week https://www.metopera.org/user-information/nightly-met-opera-streams/ After what was for me a long all-Wagner week, all the works in the Met’s nightly stream this week are by Donizetti, who is, next to Mozart, my favourite opera composer. All three of the Queens are here (Roberto Deveraux – Elizabeth 1, Maria Stuarda – Mary Queen of Scots, and Anna Bolena - Anne Boleyn) with delectable casts. And if you haven’t had enough of tragic Scottish heroines, you’d be hard put to it to better Lucia di Lammermoor with an emoting Anna Netrebko in the title role. Madame Netrebko turns up again leading the females in both Don Pasquale, and Anna Bolena (what makes you think that the conductors at the Met love her?) while Natalie Dessay does the honours in the comic La Fille du Regiment with Juan Diego Florez in charge of the famous eight high Cs in his big aria. There’s also Pretty Yende, who is lovely in the 2018 production of L’Elisir d’Amore. Virtual Tour of Times Square and 42nd Street. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/arts/design/times-square-grand-central-tour.html Here’s another of Michael Kimmelman’s terrific virtual tours of the neighbourhoods of New York with those who know them best. Kimmelman is the architecture critic of the New York Times and since lockdown he’s taken us to Brooklyn, Madison Avenue, Museum Mile, and the triangle that encompasses Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. So far. This one is Times Square and 42nd St. with Harvard professor Jerold S. Kayden who teaches law and urban planning. He explains the connection between Times Square, Grand Central and the law. Who knew? Fascinating. Ferris and Milnes – Sondheim medley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B08hMm9v9Xg If you’ve never heard of them, you will. Dominic Ferris and Martin Milnes are collectively and separately, two of the best and funniest performers in London. To call them a comedy duo doesn’t do them justice. Sure, they are funny but they’re much more than that. Ferris is a terrific pianist who concertises in several genres in concert halls and cabarets, and Milnes is an actor and singer who can, I promise you I’m not exaggerating, sing sustainably in both tenor and soprano ranges. Together, they’ve made something of a specialty of mashing up whole musicals into three-minute medleys and, in this one, they’ve managed to compress nearly all Stephen Sondheim’s oeuvre into a hilarious 5 minutes and 43 seconds. Jack Was Kind https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jack-was-kind-by-tracy-thorne-tickets-117018927763 This is a one-woman play, written and performed by the American actor Tracy Thorne which has been getting rave reviews in New York. A wife, long married to a distinguished and famous husband, is forced to confront her marriage, her children, and herself, after a series of damaging and very public revelations. Jack Was Kind gives an imagined and painfully human backstory to an actual American event that will affect the country for generations to come. This gripping confession pointedly speaks to the current, explosive political moment. Tickets are on a sliding scale, starting at $5. Sir John Soane’s Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields www.soane.org If you’re out and about in London, one of my favourite small museums, Sir John Soane’s house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields has reopened. It’s not crowded and, before people find it again, do go and visit it. It was his private residence, a riot of paintings, objects and, well, gorgeous stuff. There’s even a sepulchral chamber in the cellar, some fold-out paintings, and some architectural artifacts, which you might expect from the home of one of England’s greatest ever architects. It’s a marvel. 4/4 - Royal Opera House
https://stream.roh.org.uk/packages/4-4-1/videos/4-4?_ga=2.261264269.1613265604.1602456334-1822497641.1602456334 Unlike the Met, the Royal Opera House goes out of its way to make it difficult to access their online programmes. Oh, yes, they do have them, but you have to want to see them very badly and be willing to stick to your keyboard for grim death until you finally reach a page where you can buy tickets. For instance, when they direct you to their What’s On page, they neglect to tell you that it doesn’t exist. Here’s what I have discovered. There’s a programme called ‘4/4’. What is it? I’ve no idea. The description is: “The Royal Opera perform in this specially-curated evening – broadcast online and available to watch for £16 via our ROH Stream player from Saturday 17 October 7.30pm BST.” That’s it. That’s the whole description. Who is performing what? No idea. Pay your £16 and find out on Saturday. Or not. Actually, after a good deal of digging, I did find out more, but I had to work for it. It’s big deal directors such as Deborah Warner paired with some young singers, performing works by Handel, Gruber, Barber and Britten.
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AuthorRuth Leon is a writer and critic specialising in music and theatre. Archives
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