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It's not easy to write a good play about the life of a playwright; as with Hollywood biopics, you risk comparison to the work of your subject just as the actor risks being judged inferior to Liz Taylor, James Dean or whichever star they portray. But Giles Cole's biographical show about Sir Terence Rattigan stands up very well to the scrutiny of aficionados and newcomers alike. At the Riverside Studios.
Ballo della Regina is a Balanchine ballet with music from Verdi's Don Carlos. It's a joyful ballet which moves a tremendous pace and is paired with Bournonville's La Sylphide, the drama about the love of a mortal for a magical sylph.
After years of opera going, is it really still possible for me to be moved to tears by a tenor’s wail at the sight of a consumptive heroine dying tunefully in her bed at the end of the last act? I didn’t think so, but on the basis of last night’s Covent Garden performance of La Bohème, the answer would appear to be yes.
The extraordinary new orchestra Spira mirabilis, drawing together Europe's finest individual young players, returns to Southbank Centre following their spectacular London debut last season. The orchestra, who chooses to perform without a conductor, perform Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
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Imagine, if you will, a one man stage show, with one of the nation’s foremost and best loved actors playing all the parts in a somewhat Faustian fairy tale, with a crack team of musicians playing incidental music by one of the last century’s great composers. You might think that this would comfortably sell out a fair sized London theatre.
