Chicago Symphony – Marin Alsop Click here for tickets I’m a huge fan of the conductor Marin Alsop. No other female conductor has achieved such a significant international career so I don’t mean to diminish her impressive achievements as a conductor when I pay tribute to her unrivalled contributions to education with her belief that “every child is born a genius, filled with endless possibility”. Her commitment to education, to new music, and to championing music as a power to change lives, has made her the most effective and visible woman in the world of classical music. Hers are the giant shoulders that the new intake of important female conductors are standing on and her encouragement has given many young conductors, male and female, the courage to stand in front of 100 mainly bolshie men and wave a little stick to tell them how to play. She was the first woman to serve as the head of a major orchestra in the United States, South America, Austria and Britain, and remains a powerful and inspiring voice. She is, as the New York Times put it, not only “a formidable musician and a powerful communicator” but also “a conductor with a vision.”. In this beautiful concert she leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Children’s Choir in a unique program of Jewish music; Contemporary composer Osvaldo Golijov’s Rose of The Winds, and Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No.3, Kaddish. Osvaldo’s piece is a magnificent showcase of unique instruments including the gaita (Galician bagpipes), the kamancheh (an Iranian bowed instrument), and the shofar, an instrument made from rams’ horns, traditionally sounded on significant Jewish holidays. Then and Now – Rijksmuseum Click here to watch If you’ve ever visited Venice you will remember the canals, the palazzos, the light which makes Venice so instantly recognizable from the paintings of Canaletto. But, as we often discover when we try to match the familiar architecture and watery scenes to the famous paintings, Canaletto didn’t actually paint what he saw. In almost every case he altered his composition to fit his vision of Venice. He adapted the view to the perspective of his painting. Rarely, if ever, does a Canaletto painting completely conform to what your eyes are telling you when you look down the Grand Canal. The Dutch are different. You can go to almost any Dutch town and observe in front of you exactly what you can see in the great paintings and drawings in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. To prove the point, the Museum’s fabulous video department has a new series – Then and Now – which contrast the paintings and photographs of the same places as they are now. Check it out. And if you want to see more, with landmarks clearly indicated, click on the little circle in each landmark. Somebody has gone to a lot of trouble to demonstrate what was and what is and the results are both beautiful and fascinating. Theaterhaus Stuttgart – The Seven Sins Click here for tickets We’ve seen many manifestations of the Seven Deadly Sins before - in opera, ballet, mime, drama, even circus, but this time, courtesy of Gauthier Dance from Stuttgart, seven top international choreographers explore them in separate dance versions that really bring out the particular character of each choreographer and of course, of each sin. This ambitious project, put together by Eric Gauthier, has seven A-list choreographers of worldwide fame confronting envy, greed, gluttony, anger, lust, sloth, and pride in short works for Gauthier Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart. As you would expect from artists as diverse as Aszure Barton, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Sharon Eyal, Marcos Morau, Sasha Waltz, Marco Goecke and Hofesh Shechter each comes up with something very different, seven distinct but fiercely moving premieres. Ladies and Gentlemen, Miss Renee Fleming Click here for tickets Last week on the Theatrewise Blog, we accessed a concert of romantic songs from Berlin’s Waldbuhne, performed by the most important American opera singer of our time, Renee Fleming, still singing in recital at the end of her operatic career. I thought you might enjoy seeing her at a much earlier stage in this documentary by Tony Palmer, made in 2002. This film was the first major exploration of the life and career of the great American soprano - for many the epitome of the modern-day diva. It includes an intimate visit with Renée behind the scenes, at home and on stage as she rehearses and performs in Verdi's Otello and Requiem, and sings Strauss, Mozart, Dvorák, Korngold, Ellington, Gershwin, Puccini, Massenet, and Rachmaninoff. But it begins with my favourite ever glimpse of Fleming, singing with Muppet piglets in a Sesame Street clip. Even if you don’t watch the whole film, do not, under any circumstances, miss the first five minutes. Priceless. Frank Exchanges - David Wood You might not know the name of David Wood but, if you have children, I guarantee you know his work. David Wood, this is not an exageration, invented children’s theatre in this country against some pretty tough odds. Once he’d done that, his plays, scripts and inventions spread to other countries and if you’ve never seen The Owl and the Pussycat Went to See… , or The Gingerbread Man or The Tiger Who Came To Tea, you’ve obviously never had to entertain a small child for the afternoon. The late, much missed Irving Wardle, Theatre Critic of the Times, wrote that ‘David Wood has given children their own self-respecting artform’ as ‘the national children’s dramatist.’ I have known David for more than forty years but until I read his latest book, Frank Exchanges, I didn’t know that he had maintained a correspondence for even longer with Frank Whitbourn, his former drama and English teacher who became his lifelong mentor. They met when David was 15 and already set on a career path as an actor and magician. The relationship was sufficiently strong and nourishing to both men that they not only kept in touch as David Wood grew up and into his life as playwright, author, director, composer and originator of an artform previously given scant respect, that of children’s theatre, they both kept their letters and, now that Frank Whitbourn has died, they have been published in this book, Frank Exchanges, as a salutory example of friendship between people of different generations. It is clear from these letters that the creativity that pours out of David Wood might have been differently channelled had he not had the guiding hand of Frank Whitbourn to read and comment on his work at every stage. And children everywhere would have been poorer for it . Pocket Review Guys and Dolls – The Bridge Theatre I just heard that the most joyous show in town, Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls, which was to have closed on July 12 has now extended its sold-out run at The Bridge until February. Now you have no excuse. If you haven’t already seen this nigh-perfect arena production of one of the greatest musicals ever written, go now. The Third Man – Menier Chocolate Factory Nobody could describe The Third Man, the new musical at the Menier Chocolate Factory, as joyous. If you know the movie, you know the setting - Vienna, immediately after WW2.
Dark, damp, full of characters you’d rather not meet even in daylight. There’s a creepy doctor, a creepy Baron, a creepy porter, and a nightclub singer so deeply depressed you think she’s going to expire right in front of you. Taking on all of these is an American writer looking for his best friend, Harry Lime, who seems to have disappeared. Or perhaps he’s dead. The Third Man, while blessed with a lot of high-class creative talent – the book and lyrics are by Don Black and Christopher Hampton, music is by George Fenton and the director is Trevor Nunn – is regrettably undercast. A few stars or highly experienced West End performers might make the thriller and musical aspects work better. Without Orson Welles to add the charisma and the menace, we find we don’t really care whether Harry is alive or dead.
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AuthorRuth Leon is a writer and critic specialising in music and theatre. Archives
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