REVIEW: The Hive
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe Hive is an innovative new opera which casts a lens across the world of female serial killers through a hypothetical case study created from the real research of writer Carole Hayman.
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REVIEW: White Nights
Reading Time: 2 minutesRemember the blazing fanfares that open Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony? For Tchaikovsky, they symbolised Fate, and the whole symphony simply bursts with melody and emotion. If you’ve already heard Vasily Petrenko conduct Russian music, you won’t need telling twice: things are about to get exciting, in a concert that begins with the flying fiddles of Weinberg’s Moldavian Rhapsody and features the unforgettable tunes of Shostakovich’s irreverent Suite. Trust us, you’ll know them when you hear them!
REVIEW: Schumannliebe
Reading Time: 2 minutesA thoroughly interesting premise buoyed further by thoroughly interesting music
REVIEW: Bernstein, Barber and Glass
Reading Time: 2 minutes“A varied and rousing showcase of modern classics” The performance tonight begins with Samuel Barber’s Essay No.2, a piece which itself startsstrong and forward with percussion, then goes on to rise and fall intermittently before swellingwith the…
REVIEW: Disney’s Aladdin
Reading Time: 2 minutesOne thing promised by this lively musical production of Disney’s Aladdin is “breathtaking spectacle” and that is one thing it delivers in spades.
REVIEW: Serenades
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe pieces were excellently chosen and performed, as is often the case with the musicians of the Liverpool Philharmonic, fantastically. Definitely a very worthwhile performance.
REVIEW: The Lieutenant of Inishmore
Reading Time: 2 minutesMartin McDonagh’s play, “The Lieutenant of Inishmore”, follows the story of Padraic, lieutenant of an Irish National Liberation Army splinter group as he returns home to Inishmore following the death of his cat and explores the fallout that ensues after he learns of its murder.
REVIEW: The Silent Planet
Reading Time: 2 minutesOrchestrator Ian Gardiner (along with musicians Will Pound and Delia Stevens) has done a fantastic job of rearranging the works so that, whilst different in many aspects, not least instrumentation, these pieces still evoke the feelings of the original. Though it does stray quite far from Holst’s original compositions in a lot of places this is not necessarily a bad thing either. It allows for a new life to be injected into the pieces through alterations in style, speed and even the arrangement of certain movements. Venus, for example, is now a lilting tune reminiscent of Latin Jazz; Jupiter is faster and seems something close to an Irish reel, or bluegrass; Mercury is filled with birdsong.
REVIEW: The Kite Runner
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe acting is, for all intents and purposes, stellar. There are one or two moments in the first portion of the play, where several of the main cast are playing children, where some of the “childlike” exuberance of several characters can come across as a little forced, but this is a fleeting and minor concern. There is an undeniable presence to all of the actors on stage, and it is comforting to see them take their time with their parts, allowing character to unfold parallel with plot in a way that seems natural and fitting. Of particular note as a standout performance, I found Dean Rehman’s Baba to be excellently delivered as a complicated, sympathetic character, especially in a relatively moderate role.
REVIEW: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra: Sheku Kanneh-Mason performs Weinberg
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe concert at Liverpool’s Philharmonic opens with a rendition of Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade, a lively and almost playful piece of around ten minutes, which is performed with vivacious enthusiasm by the orchestra. This gives way to the eponymous piece of the night’s event: Mieczysław Weinberg’s Cello Concerto in C minor op.43, in which visiting musician Sheku Kanneh-Mason takes centre stage as lead cello. As both the orchestra and Kanneh-Mason launch into the strident introductory motif that will become the piece’s throughline, the first and most obvious issue with this performance becomes apparent.