Remembering Margaret Rutherford: murder on and off screen

Margaret Rutherford and Stringer Davis in Murder Ahoy

You have to be forty-one at least, to make an impression as the dotty old woman on screen. That was Margaret Rutherford’s age when she began her film career. She said in a BBC television interview that she was puzzled why so many people found her films comic. Solving crime is a serious business, she added. Coming from her lips, we find that comic too.

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Redemption at the Met for Puccini’s flawed La rondine from Gheorghiu, Alagna and Oropesa

United StatesUnited States Puccini, La rondine: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera, New York / Marco Armiliato (conductor). Performance from 10.1.2009 and reviewed as a Nightly Met Opera Stream on 16.4.2020. (JPr)

Lisette Oropesa, Marius Brenciu, Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu
in La rondine (c) Metropolitan Opera

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Sweet Land: A site-specific opera in downtown LA streams online

United StatesUnited States Raven Chacon and Du Yun, Sweet Land: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of The Industry / Marc Lowenstein and Jenny Wong (co-conductors), Los Angeles State Historic Park. Live performance of 15.3.2020 streaming online. (JRo)

Sharon Chohi Kim (Windigo) in Sweet Land
(c) Casey Kringlen

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Exuberant Jason Manford-led Curtains proves a perfect antidote to our coronavirus-blighted times

United KingdomUnited Kingdom Curtains (music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, book by Rupert Holmes, original book and concept by Peter Stone with additional lyrics by John Kander and Rupert Holmes): Company of Curtains, filmed at the Palace Theatre, Manchester, and directed for the screen by Martin Riley. Live online stream reviewed on 14.4.2020. (JPr)

The cast of Curtains © The Other Richard

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Reliving happy Vienna memories of Rudolf Nureyev’s theatrically vital 1964 Swan Lake

AustriaAustria Tchaikovsky, Swan Lake: Dancers of the Vienna State Ballet, Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera / Alexander Ingram (conductor). Recorded at the Vienna State Opera on 16.3.2014 and reviewed on 11.4.2020. (JPr)

Odile (Olga Esina) & Vladimir Shishov (Prince Siegfried) in Swan Lake

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Revisiting the Met’s classic Aida and the vocal glories of Netrebko and Rachvelishvili

United StatesUnited States Verdi, Aida: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of Metropolitan Opera, New York / Nicola Luisotti (conductor). Broadcast live from the Metropolitan Opera, New York, on 6.10.2018 and reviewed as a Nightly Met Opera Stream on 7.4.2020. (JPr)

Anna Netrebko (Aida) & Anita Rachvelishvili (Amneris) (c) Marty Sohl/Met Opera

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Revisiting the Met’s Superb 2010 Don Carlo

United StatesUnited States Verdi, Don Carlo (archived Live in HD encore): Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera / Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor). Performance of 11.12.2010 and reviewed on 2.4.2020. (RDA)

Marina Poplavskaya (Elisabeth) & Roberto Alagna (Don Carlo) (c) Ken Howard

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