Anyone with an interest in portraiture will want to see this exhibition – a glorious opportunity to see more than 50 of John Singer Sargent’s paintings gathered in one place. The fashion theme provides a fascinating through-line, a starting point to appreciate the skill and complexity of Sargent’s compositions. But there are multiple layers to…
Category: 19th Century
Despax’s ‘Après un rêve’ is a dream of an album
Emmanuel Despax’s boyhood was spent discussing music and poetry with his poet grandfather, Jacques Charpentreau, over French patisseries. Memories of those perfect moments spent with his beloved relative, listening to Debussy, Poulenc, Ravel, Saint Saëns, has led to Despax’s latest piano release, Après un rêve. Some works are daringly familiar. Debussy’s Clair de Lune, for instance, is…
A Sublime ‘Hansel and Gretel’ at Opera Holland Park
Opera Holland Park’s decision to take on Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel & Gretel this 2023 season was inspired and not only because the story chimes with societal concerns over child poverty and hunger. There are many reasons to see this late 19th century opera, which is far from political and more religious in sentiment, the libretto having been…
Opera Holland Park Delivers A Polished Production of Rigoletto
Verdi’s opera Rigoletto marked the beginning of Opera Holland Park’s 2023 season last week. The story of a disabled jester who feels trapped in a society he despises makes for good drama. Not surprisingly Verdi saw in the court jester Rigoletto “A Creation worthy of Shakespeare”. “If I am evil – you are to blame”, Rigoletto sings but…
Self-portrait: Berthe Morisot – ‘Shaping Impressionism’, Dulwich Picture Gallery
As this fascinating exhibition points out in its opening text panel, Berthe Morisot (1841-95) was an active participant in the Impressionist movement, fully-appreciated and successful in her lifetime. She presented her work in all but one of the major Impressionist exhibitions, missing only 1879, after giving birth to her daughter a few months earlier. There…
Fauré’s Requiem and Collishaw’s ‘Sky Burial’ at the Seine Musicale Paris – A heavenly meeting of the minds.
No one likes to think about death. In Western society we bury our dead as soon as we can. There they remain, out of sight, but not out of mind. In Turkey and Tibet however, where the ground is too hard to break up, Zoroastrian burial rites survive. The dead are left out on stone slabs…
Picasso-Ingres Face to Face at National Gallery
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…
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…
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…
Close to the edit: Edna Stern, ‘Schubert on tape’
Edna Stern’s latest release is a fascinating find. Beautifully performed, for sure, but those performances are led by an intriguing, impeccably realised idea. The pieces on this disc are well-loved and oft-recorded: the first four ‘Impromptus’ (D899) and the ‘Moments Musicaux’ (D780). But Stern, following the courage of her convictions, has arrived at a new…
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