I’ve always felt disappointed that the only Shakespearean play I was exposed to at secondary school was A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Even though I fell in love with the tale, I feel that this particular play has developed a reputation for being one of the Bard’s more commercial efforts and I have grown envious of my friends whose education involved far more bloodshed…
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been reproduced in every medium imaginable. But how many of them have been described as ‘phantasmagorical’? – read more.
One of the most instantly recognisable images of Australia (besides Paul Hogan and Kylie Minogue, of course) is the Sydney Opera House. Looking like a pair of spiky-backed molluscs mating, what many people wouldn’t even consider is the fact that it is genuinely an opera house. This means that productions of opera do actually happen there. One such example is the powerful Lakme, by Delibes, which features one of the art form’s greatest (and most difficult) arias – read more.
Remaking classic tales to be set in modern-day surroundings is generally a hit or miss affair. Maybe this is due to the apparent ‘words out of a hat’ approach to nailing the concept. Think about it, you take three hats and fill one with the names of classic stories/plays/operas, fill the second with different locations, and the third with quirky settings. Presumably, this is how director, Tony Britten, ended up recreating Verdi’s Falstaff set at a golf course near Windsor – read more.
Anthony Minghella, the director of Truly, Madly, Deeply, The English Patient, and Cold Mountain, is currently dropping the genre “films-I’ll-never-watch” and instead trying his hand at directing opera. What’s his motivation and, more importantly, will he be any good? – read more
In this modern age of walking robots, iPhones, 48” LCD screens and microwave ovens, it can often be difficult manoeuvring around the hundreds of TV channels to find what you want. For this little problem, there are two possible solutions. You can either switch over to MTV and watch 24hr repeats of Cribs, or you can read this article and become enlightened by ArtsWom’s choice of the best programming Sky Arts has to offer this week. For the sake of all that is decent in the world, please do the latter…
Monday 4th Feb –
The Book Show, series 2 episode 13 (7pm) - Your last chance to see episode thirteen of the Mariella Fostrup-hosted lair of all that is literary known as, The Book Show. As the only TV programme dedicated entirely to books, tuning in to this little gem should become as familiar to every book fan as paying off those overdue fines at the library. Lesley Garrett’s 20 Operas to see before you Die, episode 1: The Barber of Seville (8pm) – This series, as presented by the delightful pin-up for men of a certain age, looks set to be a compelling introduction to opera for many who have thus far only dabbled in the art form and a must-see for aficionados. The first of the twenty operas is The Barber of Seville and we would offer a short synopsis, but it is opera after all and isn’t really supposed to make sense.
Tuesday 5th Feb – John Lennon: Gimme Some Truth (9pm) – Part of Sky Arts’ Backstory series of behind-the-scenes documentaries, Gimme Some Truth reveals the creation of Lennon’s acclaimed album, Imagine. This is a great opportunity to follow the studio process, from inception to completion, of all the songs on the album. You can also see some mushy moments between the genius and Yoko Ono, if you’re into that sort of thing. So Wrong They’re Right (00.25am) – Want to make an entertaining documentary? Pick some weirdness, travel to America, and expend a wad of video-tape interviewing these wackos. In the case of So Wrong They’re Right, the eccentricity of choice is a love of 8-track tapes. Not to be missed.
Wednesday 6th Feb –
London Visions with Peter Ackroyd (6.30pm) – Check out some spectacular shots of London from the most unusual vantage points with the author of London: The Biography. This unique and inspiring programme makes use of seasons, time, and weather to present some incredible views that will allow you to appreciate the capital in a completely new way. Alice Cooper’s Rock Revolutionaries: Beach Boys Good Vibrations Tour (9pm) – It’s 1976, you’re in Anaheim Stadium and the five original members of the Beach Boys return to perform Good Vibrations, Surfin’ USA and It’s Ok for your benefit. They’d better play Sloop John B too…
Thursday 7th Feb –
Outback Opera (3:55pm) – It’s such a shame that shows like this one rarely make it to the primetime slot. Follow Opera Australia as they take Puccini’s tragic opera of bohemian love, La Boheme, on the road into rural Australia.
The Book Show, series 2 episode 14 (7pm) – Stick those reading glasses back on for more bookish banter. This episode features Helen Dunmore, Sophie Kinsella, and controversial atheist (is there any other kind?) Richard Dawkins.
Friday 8th Feb –
Ballet Boyz Night (8pm) – Settle in for the long haul as The Ballet Boyz hijack Sky Arts for a night of their schedule picks. Starting at eight with Johnny Cash: Live at Montreux, the night continues with a documentary following Radiohead on tour and concludes with Kuroneko, a Japanese film which tells the tale of a mother and daughter who are raped and murdered by soldiers, but return as vampire spirits, bent on revenge.
As reported on the pages of The Stage - famed British soprano, Lesley Garrett, will be presenting a new series on Sky Arts titled 20 operas to see before you die. If your death is tragically imminent and you simply cannot rely on a performance of La Boheme turning up at your town hall, there is no need to grow concerned as Sky Arts will be broadcasting a different opera each week, including Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Bizet’s Carmen.
Garrett will be presenting each episode, sharing her experiences of performing some of the featured works, and discussing them with each show’s composer. The one-time Mother Abbess in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s stage production of Sound of Music (which a certain art blog writer was fortunate enough to see over the weekend, although this year the role of Mother Abbess is being ably filled by the powerful Margaret Preece), Garrett hopes that the season “encourages people to sample opera and [will] stir up debate about the choice of operas we think they simply cannot afford to miss.”
ArtsWom haven’t been able to track down the full list of twenty operas, but with the series due to start on February 4th 2008, we expect to be able to fill you in soon.
Lohengrin: Behind the Scenes - Never Shalt Thou Ask of Me
Mon 15 Oct 2007 4:55PM - 6:05PM
Tue 16 Oct 2007 11:20AM - 12:30PM
Thu 18 Oct 2007 4:50PM - 6:00PM
Sun 21 Oct 2007 3:55PM - 5:05PM
A revealing and fascinating SkyArts documentary, this programme examines how the opera’s themes of magic, vengeance, rivalry and immorality are signified and followed throughout. It is interspersed with interviews from the cast and key members of the production team, which gives the viewer a behind-the-scenes look at Wagner’s classic opera.
Lohengrin
Mon 15 Oct 2007 8:00PM - 11:30PM
Tue 16 Oct 2007 2:00PM - 5:30PM
Thu 18 Oct 2007 8:00AM - 11:30AM
Sat 20 Oct 2007 2:00PM - 5:30PM
The opera itself tells the tale of Elsa, accused of her brother’s murder, who summons in her defence a knight from her dreams. The knight (Lohengrin) appears in a boat drawn by a swan, defeats Elsa’s accuser (Telramund) but spares his life, declares Elsa innocent and asks for her hand in marriage. Telramund and his wife are banished, but return and accuse Lohengrin of necromancy. This accusation is rejected, but the seeds of doubt are sown in Elsa’s mind and in the bridal chamber she asks Lohengrin whether he is a magician. He reveals that he is son of King Parsifal (of the Holy Grail legend) and has only waited to clear Elsa’s name, but now he must leave. As a parting gift, the swan which brought Lohengrin’s boat dives into the river and reappears as Elsa’s lost brother. Lohengrin leaves, but Elsa is distraught at the loss of her loved one and promptly falls down dead.
A classic opera, much performed and interpreted, Carmen is the archetypal tragic love story. The version playing on Sky Arts this weekend features the Berlin State Opera Chorus and Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, and is a lavish production featuring some of the world’s best opera singers. The press following the first recital by this cast said that the lead male (Mexican Rolando Vilazon) sung the part ‘as it hasn’t been sung in a long time’, and that his performance ‘alone makes it worth seeing’.
For those unfamiliar with the plot of the opera, Carmen is a young gypsy girl who is arrested and imprisoned. Her guard, Don José, falls in love and helps her escape at the cost of his own liberty. Upon release he joins Carmen’s smugglers but is called away to see his dying mother. When he returns, he finds that hi beloved is having an affair with a bullfighter, which drives him to kill her and throw himself on her body at the exact moment the toreador makes a kill in the ring. Powerful stuff and sure to make for an exciting performance.
If you have anything to say about this opera, add to the comments here.
Commencing Monday 17th September in honour of one of the greatest tenors to ever live, Sky Arts will bring you Pavarotti Week.
Dedicated to the talent of Luciano Pavarotti, each night viewers will be able to bear witness to milestones in his career, with a selection of his most famous work including the Italia 90 performances of Nessun Dorma that contributed to making him a household name, and his later shows that merge popular music stars with traditional opera.
The full list of programmes and their broadcast times can be found here. Pavarotti in Concert in China gets things underway on Monday beginning at 8:00PM. For those you can’t wait however, here is a preview of Pavarotti doing what we all remember him for.
It was many a moon ago when ArtsWom last ventured eastwards and entered the Big Smoke to stick our operatic hats on. Satyagraha was the production of choice and proved to be a dramatic treat with awesome set design and a mind-blowing score by acclaimed minimalist composer, Philip Glass. Read all about our past adventures here. Tonight, we get the chance to revisit the ENO performance as Sky Arts airs the documentary Satyagraha: Behind the scenes with Philip Glass. This will be shown tonight at 9pm and will be repeated Friday 5.35pm.
Mon 13 Aug 2007 8:00PM - 11:25PM Tue 14 Aug 2007 2:00PM - 5:25PM Thu 16 Aug 2007 4:35PM - 8:00PM Sun 19 Aug 2007 2:00PM - 5:25PM
I Puritani, the opera written by Vincenzo Bellini is on Sky Arts tonight. Produced for the first time in 1835, the three acts are set against the end of the English Civil War. The opera is a sort of Romeo and Juliet, except with the roundheads and cavaliers supplanting the Montague’s and Capulet’s. Simple really… Well, not entirely, it does get a little more complex than this. There is no need however, for ArtsWom to rehash and regurgitate. Instead turn the page when you hear the blue text to Sky Arts’ I Putitani page and then point your eyes at a goggle box tuned to channel 267 (or 268 if you are HD enabled) at the appropriate moment in the TV schedule.
For those poor Brits floating Noah-like upon a pool of muddy water where their house used to be, it can be difficult to remember that it’s summer. But against all evidence to the contrary, it is, which means that a certain infamous Scottish arts event can’t be far behind. Yes, with the Fringe kicking off on 5th August and the official programme launching on the 10th, it’s time to seriously consider booking some tickets and a bed for the comprehensively cosmopolitan, caber-tossing cultural conundrum that is the Edinburgh Festival.
The official site shows you all the opera, dance, theatre and music on offer in six major theatres and concert halls across the city, as well as smaller niche venues. Looking at the offerings, ArtsWom suggests that unmissable gems will include Alan Cumming, back on the Scottish stage for the first time in sixteen years in The Bacchae; Benjamin Bagby, harpist and storyteller, with his Old English rendition of Beowulf; and Jordi Savall playing baroque classics on the little-known viola da gamba.
Over at the Fringe there is the usual bewildering array of the sublime and the ridiculous. From the Kaiser Chiefs to Auto Auto, a ‘crash musical’ involving the decimation of a Vauxhall Astra Mk2, making decisions about what to see can be pretty difficult. Of course, you can follow the strategy of spontaneity, and go unbooked and ready to follow the flyers wherever they may lead – and hey, there are worse things than watching acrobatic Polish dwarves interpreting Pinter through ballet.
Whatever your plans, Artswom will of course bring you any hot tips as we hear them, but in the meantime get yourself in the mood for the mayhem at the Fringe MySpace page with their blog, videos and this nice little game involving cakes.
We all know that the kids love gun crime. In fact, a recent survey asking UK youths to order their favourite pastimes revealed that the hobby ranked third, making it marginally more popular than ‘happy slapping’ but trailing behind loitering on street corners in hoods and collecting pogs. Interestingly, the least popular hobbies for youngsters these days were celibacy, social responsibility and opera.
It was probably with these shocking results in mind, that south London organisation - the Urban Concept - have begun a campaign to boost the popularity of opera amongst these rosy-faced, gun-toting little tykes and so raise awareness of the dangers that come from neglecting our classical roots. By combining Hip Hop and opera, they have created Hip Hopera – one of my all-time favourite neologisms.
Now, for a touch of reality…
Entitled Don’t Trigger, this campaign uses music videos, documentary footage and contributions from victims to create a 50-minute film communicating the real-life effect of gun crime in a way that will, hopefully, reach young people. The impact this will have is debatable, and readers of the blog, Hilton Global Initiative, do not seem to have much faith in the scheme. We agree more with Ski Mask Way, however, who praise the BBC for reporting on the efforts to curb gun crime rather than just the statistics and wish the Urban Concept great luck in their campaign.
Inspired by tonight’s showing of The Barber of Seville on Sky Arts, the collective hive mind that is ArtsWom suddenly exploded in a synaptic shower of metacultural brilliance. It rose like a blossoming chrysanthemum into the atmosphere, only to disperse into dazzling particles of concentrated artiness dropping gently into the eagerly, receptive grey matter of your minds.
Or, maybe not.
Rather, we (in a logical step seemingly common amongst fellow bloggers) were drawn back to our childhood and felt inspired to write about Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in the legendary Rabbit of Seville. Fortunately, you have been saved a potentially hazardous tour down the ill-paved ArtsWom memory lane by Max2Fair, who has written this beautiful recollection for Sunday’s entry on Song O’The Day (a site we will definitely be revisiting!). Enjoy!
Gianluigi Gelmetti conducts Rossini’s masterpiece from the Real Theatre, Madrid, tonight at 8pm on Sky Arts. The performance will be repeated throughout the week. Click here for more information.
Charlotte Higgins’s interview with Edward Gardner on Guardian Unlimited reveals the young conductor’s determination and faith in his ability to bolster the appreciation of opera in this country, despite potential cutbacks from the Art Council’s funding.
Award-winning Gardner has won hearts and fame with his charming exuberance and considerable talent. Since taking over as Music Director of Glyndebourne at the tender age of 28, the musical maestro has been highly sought after within the classical music industry. Considering his lifelong attachment to the company (the first opera he ever saw was an ENO production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Shostakovich and his mentor, Mark Elder, who was music director of ENO) it is no surprise that he has chosen to devote himself to the organisation.
Strauss’s Rosenkavlier and Verdi’s Aida are two upcoming treats (with Gardner conducting the latter) and a new production of Carmen will be leading this autumn’s season which will continue to be sponsored by Sky Arts. To find out more about the 2007/2008 season, click here.
ArtsWom had a night out last Thursday at the latest production of Philip Glass’s opera Satyagraha, which is built around Mahatma Gandhi’s time in South Africa between 1893 and 1914.
The production is astounding in the strong and coherent visual style it generates from next to nothing on the stage. The creation of farmland from nothing more than a few twigs and then the growing sprawl of a town manifested in metal sheets is brilliant in its simplicity. Huge puppets of man and beast seemingly rise from nothing on the sparsely decorated stage. For those that want the illusion broken they are in fact built by the performers on stage from props, that until they appear as the mid section of a goliath crocodile, you had not noticed. Another feature of the set is the rusty backdrop that has innumerable doors, windows and slide away sections that re-structured the space almost constantly.
It is fitting that only now do I mention the music because however good Glass’s composition, it does have some of its edge dulled by the masterful stage play. The viewer is occassionally distracted, as actors don stilts and wires to bring to life a 15-foot tall woman made of newspaper, for example. This is only a minor flaw though, as Glass asks the singers and musicians involved for a dedication to the work beyond the realms of the usual. The flautist for one 20-minute period appeared to be resolvedly repeating a short, but particular phrasing without pause. The same commitment is required of the singers and their stamina is phenomenal. Creating a meditative state is what is achieved precisely and efficiently giving the audience an aural setting for all they see.
During Phelim McDermott’s and Julian Crouch’s production of Satyagraha at the ENO it feels like an unmitigated success and afterwards a sensation of the significant embeds itself, as though you have witnessed an event that is as important and relevant as it is brilliant.
To read the review from one of ArtsWom’s guests for the night at the opera go to Anna’s Blog.
SkyArts who are sponsoring the current season at the ENO have an evening of programmes dedicated to Philip Glass scheduled for the 14th April; details can be found here.
If you can detect a faint whiff of garlic in the air, it’s because the French Film Festival UK has invaded our shores with the typically-French intention of mocking our dainty, English sensibilities and seducing our spouses. That’s just the price we p
