Another BBC triumph. An hour with nineteen of the world’s ‘Perfect Pianists’ captured across almost a century on BBC film. Rarely has education combined so well with rich entertainment.
Perfect Pianists at the BBC: education and entertainment
Broadcasts and Film
Looking back at Piotr Beczala encoring his triumphant Cavaradossi in Vienna’s classic Tosca
Austria Puccini, Tosca: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera / Marco Armiliato (conductor). Directed for the screen by Ella Gallieni and recorded at the Vienna State Opera on 23.6.2019 and reviewed on 28.4.2020. (JPr)
Revisiting Joseph Calleja’s Hoffmann in Bartlett Sher’s 2009 new Met production
United States Offenbach, Les contes d’Hoffmann: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera, New York / James Levine (conductor). Performance from 19.12.2009 reviewed as a Nightly Met Opera Stream on 23.4.2020. (JPr)
The BBC takes the Corner Shop Back in Time from yesteryear to nearly next century
Do you have a corner shop nearby? If so the chances are it will be owned and run by a family of Asian heritage, open most of twenty-four hours, friendly, better stocked than the supermarket, and all the more likely to provide you with improbable, impossible whatever, if you have ready cash and a sense of humour. Theatre doesn’t come better than this. But this is real life. No kidding.
BBC2 have just taken us through a six-part ‘extraordinary time-travelling adventure’ on the corner shop from Victorian times to the end of our new century. At the moment Back in Time for the Corner Shop is waiting for you on iPlayer for a little while longer. If this isn’t entertainment with a big smile, I don’t know what is.
Remembering Margaret Rutherford: murder on and off screen
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.
Redemption at the Met for Puccini’s flawed La rondine from Gheorghiu, Alagna and Oropesa
United 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)
in La rondine (c) Metropolitan Opera
Sweet Land: A site-specific opera in downtown LA streams online
United 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)
(c) Casey Kringlen
Exuberant Jason Manford-led Curtains proves a perfect antidote to our coronavirus-blighted times
United 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)
