SINCE 1999 A LIVE REVIEW SITE FOR OPERA, BALLET, CONCERTS, THEATRE , BROADCASTS AND FILMS
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)
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.
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.
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)
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)
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)
Austria 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)
United 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)
