A peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience. Henry VIII, a collaborative play between Shakespeare and John Fletcher, is famous for one thing above all else: during a performance on 29 June 1613 of a play called All is True a cannon fired on the stage ignited the thatched roof of the … More Shakespeare Saturday: Henry VIII
Today is the Holocaust Memorial Day here in the UK. For that, I’m reposting here (verbatim) a bit I published in my other blog about two years ago, after seeing Mark Hayhurst’s play Taken at Midnight. It’s story of a young lawyer who challenged Hitler in the early days of his pursuit for power, ending … More This day of remembrance
There haven’t been many weeks like this. Over the space of just seven days, I have seen Renee Fleming’s farewell performance at the Royal Opera, watched Simon Russell Beale play Prospero in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Tempest, and finally listened to Martha Argerich play Prokofiev in the Sheldonian. I have been trying to write … More Lately
New year, new-ish season. I had originally decided against booking Der Rosenkavalier – it was too close to Christmas holiday etc. But as the ROH public booking opened, I ended up grabbing a £20 standing ticket to what turned out to be Renee Fleming’s farewell performance at the Royal Opera (she will retire from the … More Der Rosenkavalier
I made several attempts at getting everything I saw in one mosaic. Turns out that I don’t have an pictures from the Ariadne auf Naxos I saw in the spring, and only a curtain photo of Boris Godunov. And quite possibly nothing at all from Nabucco (either that, or I’m blind). The two recitals that … More It was a very good year. In some respects.
Shakespeare for absolute beginners 