Shakespeare’s Globe Player - Globe to Globe Click here to subscribe The Globe Player operates differently from other streaming services. Recently, their prestigious series of visiting international productions, Globe to Globe, has become available online. Subtitled in English, we can already enjoy 5 Shakespeare plays from around the world, with more on the way in 2023. So far, they include Two Gentlemen of Verona in Shona, a two-man Zimbabwean riot of love, friendship and betrayal. From Verona to Milan, via Harare and Bulawayo, two great friends, Valentine and Proteus, vie for the love of the same woman. Then there’s The Tempest from Bangladesh, in Bangla, The Winter’s Tale in Yoruba, Henry V111 in Castilian Spanish and, best of all, Much Ado About Nothing, set among the hypertensions of an Italian restaurant, performed in French by the Hypermobile Company. It's amazing how different each play, especially somehow the ones you know well, look and sound in another language. Each of these can be bought for £9.99 each but, if you’re a Shakespeare lover, an annual subscription is a better deal at £59.99. Torvill and Dean - Ravel’s Bolero Click here to watch I have always loved figure skating, especially ice dancing. It seems to me the closest experience to flying that a human can have, this lack of connection to the earth, precise and almost unworldly in its combination of freedom and specificity. This week, quite by accident, while looking for something else, I watched Torvill and Dean’s gold-medal winning performance in the 1984 World Championships where their interpretation of Ravel’s Bolero won, and deserved, a perfect score. Today’s skaters are expected to do more by way of spectacular moves, higher jumps, faster spins, more contortions, in flashier costumes, but this Torville and Dean dance, and it is dancing, can never be bettered for technique, musicality, confidence, and that indefinable something that separates talent from genius. It deserves to be watched again and again for its sheer artistry. A Swinging Birdland Christmas Click here for tickets On Thursday-Sunday this week at 5:30pm ET and then for 72hours following the livestream, Birdland presents it’s 13th annual Swinging Birdland Christmas. The performers are again Birdland regulars Billy Stritch, Jim Caruso, and Klea Blackhurst. In the tradition of beloved seasonal specials, Blackhurst, Caruso and Stritch will perform swinging arrangements of “Christmas Waltz,” Kay Thompson’s “Holiday Season,” “Sleigh Ride,” “I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm,” “Snow,” and “It Happened In Sun Valley,” among other favorites. The show will also include a musical tribute to Birdland regular, the late Freddy Cole, who was also a holiday tradition! The singers will be joined by Steve Doyle on bass and Daniel Glass on drums. Schubert’s Wintereise – Winter Journey Click here for tickets Franz Schubert’s masterpiece, his song cycle Winterreise, bewildered his friends when he first played it through to them. 200 years on, it still challenges musicians of every generation. In this beautiful film, Benjamin Appl (baritone) and James Baillieu (piano) re-imagine the songs at the top of a mountain pass in Switzerland in a way that emphasizes the timelessness of Schubert’s music. British/German baritone Benjamin Appl is celebrated by audiences and critics alike for a voice that ‘belongs to the last of the old great masters of song’ with ‘an almost infinite range of colours’ (Suddeutsche Zeitung), ‘exacting attention to text’ (New York Times), and artistry that’s described as ‘unbearably moving’ (The Times). The documetary is directed by John Bridcut Mayerling pas de deux - Royal Ballet Click here to watch At this time of the year I want my ballet as far away as I can get from The Nutcracker. No disrespect to Tchaikowsky or Balanchine but all those sweeties and bunnies give me a tummyache and send me off in seach of raunchy on-stage sex. Which makes we wonder….what’s the sexiest pas de deux in the classical ballet repertoire? Well, of course it depends on who’s dancing, but a good case can be made for the bedroom scene in Kenneth Macmillan’s Mayerling, especially when danced by Sarah Lamb as Baroness Mary Vetsera and Steven McRae as the crazed Crown Prince Rudolf. Mayerling is based on the true story of the deaths of Crown Prince Rudolf and his teenage mistress Mary Vetsera in 1889. This dark and intense ballet was created for The Royal Ballet in 1978 and is regarded by many, including me, as among Kenneth MacMillan's finest works. The full ballet is on the ROH website but here is just the pas de deux from the Royal Ballet’s production. After watching this we all need a cold shower. Ice Cream – Barbara Cook Click here to watch She Loves Me is a stage musical with a book by Joe Masteroff, music by Jerry Bock, and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, the same guys who wrote the songs for Fiddler on the Roof. The musical is the third adaptation of the 1937 play Parfumerie by Hungarian playwright Miklós László, following the 1940 film The Shop Around the Corner and the 1949 musical version In the Good Old Summertime. But She Loves Me was the biggest hit and is still revived by theatre companies throughout the world. On Broadway, the role of Amalia Balash, a shopgirl in love with her pen-pal who turns out to be her mortal foe in the shop where they both work, went to Barbara Cook. Already a star, for her appearances in Plain and Fancy, Oklahoma!, Candide, and her Tony for originating the role of Marion in The Music Man, she hit the heights with this iconic song which she went on to sing in almost every concert and cabaret appearance for the rest of her life. A Puppy for Hanukkah - Daveed Diggs Click here to watch I make no apology that this is the third year I’ve put this enchanting little rap film on the Blog. A Puppy For Hanukkah was devised and written by the wonderful actor Daveed Diggs (best known for Hamilton) who, not coincidentally, has a Black father and a Jewish mother. This is where his dual heritage coincides in the most charming and all-inclusive way. No excuse for repeating it, except that I love it. And, judging by all previous comments, you do too. And it’s Chanukah, no matter how you spell it.
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AuthorRuth Leon is a writer and critic specialising in music and theatre. Archives
April 2024
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