In room 46 of the London National Gallery, two portraits hang, one by classical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, the other by Pablo Picasso. Ingres’s portrait is of society beauty, Madame Moitessier (1856). Picasso’s portrait, several metres away, is of his mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, entitled Woman with a Book (1932). You may wonder why these works have been given…
Author: ArtMuseLondon
ArtMuseLondon is a site for reviews of art exhibitions and music in London, and general cultural musings, written by people with a keen interest and an honest, accessible approach.
Spear pressure: ‘Parsifal’, Opera North
‘Here is where time becomes space’: this is one of the most famous – and mysterious – quotes from Wagner’s final opera, ‘Parsifal’, which at its best can make that scientific impossibility seem real. Unhurried, epic storytelling punctuated with moments of overwhelming beauty or horror that somehow transcend a mere auditorium in what feels like…
Colin Riley’s ‘Isolated Pieces’
Composer Colin Riley writes: “ISOLATED PIECES is the culmination of the work of 27 contributors from across many genres of music. As an experiment on ‘connection’ and ‘trust’ during the isolating period of lockdown, I asked musicians I knew to respond to several small fragments of piano music I’d created. Everyone said yes and emailed…
Inspired Casting for Opera Holland Park’s ‘Onegin’
When Eugene Onegin premiered in Moscow in 1879, Tchaikovksy was aware of the weight of expectation around his new opera which had been directly inspired by Alexander Pushkin’s epic poem of the same title. Pushkin was Russia’s Shakespeare – a god. Would his dramatisation of Pushkin’s masterpiece come off well? Pushkin was long gone by then, having…
(P)review: African Concert Series update
A quick look backward and forward: into the recent past, recalling my most recent visit to an African Concert Series event, and ahead, to let you know about theilr upcoming events. * I collected a new venue in mid-May, on my first encounter with the Africa Centre, slightly hidden away (especially at the moment, thanks…
Tim Mead and La Nuova Musica bring Handel’s Unsung Heroes to St Martin-in-the-Fields
Saturday night and jubilant Middlesborough football supporters may have taken over Trafalgar Square but inside St Martin-in-the-Field’s airy nave, period ensemble, La Nuova Musica, have taken to the stage. All is calm as the musicians tune up. The candelabras are lit on this summer’s evening and the East window over the altar commands our attention….
Hang about: Andreas Gursky (White Cube, Bermondsey); ‘For the Record’ (Photographers’ Gallery)
A few Saturdays ago, I went to two photography exhibitions. When you see two shows more or less together like this – even though they are nothing to do with each other – it’s hard to stop unlooked-for, and occasionally revelatory, connections popping into your head and affecting how you perceive the work. Both the…
Insula Orchestra presents Fidelio at the Barbican on its European tour
In a special one-nighter, Paris-based orchestra, Insula, performed its new, semi-staged production of Fidelio at the Barbican this week. Insula’s stop-off in London was part of Insula’s European tour, which ends in a staged version of the opera in Paris’s new concert hall, La Seine Musicale on 14th, 16th and 18th May In opera, semi-staged can mean as little as a…
National address: Chorus of English National Opera, St Martin in the Fields
No doubt about it, this was one of those concerts where my batteries felt properly recharged, restored to full strength with the power of these voices, somehow still flowing through me. A real privilege to hear such a fine group of singers at such close quarters, presenting a programme as individual as their own distinctive…
Walter Sickert Unsettles and Enchants at Tate Britain Retrospective
Walter Sickert is a bit of an enigma. Brilliant certainly, rather weird, probably. Author, Patricia Cornwell, wrote a book about him, claiming that he was the Jack the Ripper. She is not the first writer to associate Sickert with the infamous murderer. Other writers postulate that Sickert was the Ripper’s assistant. What is undeniable, is that Sickert…
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