SINCE 1999 A LIVE REVIEW SITE FOR OPERA, BALLET, CONCERTS, THEATRE , BROADCASTS AND FILMS
France Prokofiev, Cinderella (Rudolf Nureyev’s production): Dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet, Orchestre Pasdeloup / Vello Pähn (conductor). Opéra Bastille, Paris, 31.12.2018 performance (directed for the screen by Isabelle Julien) and reviewed as an Opéra national de Paris online stream broadcast on 1.5.2020. (JPr)
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.
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)
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)
