RSNO, 21/11/2015

Liszt : Les Préludes
Poulenc : Organ Concerto (Thierry Escaich, organ)
Saint-Saëns : Symphony No. 3 "Organ"

Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Jun Märkl

What was THAT...?

What it was supposed to be was a production of The Nutcracker by one of those itinerant Eastern European companies that roam around the UK two or three times a year.  Now, I'm not daft.  I don't expect miracles, especially when they come to this city and use a venue very little suited to the performance of ballet (and that escapes me too - surely there are some proscenium arch auditoriums in town that could take these companies for a couple of nights, at no greater expense than the Concert Hall?).  They schlepp around the country, the dancers underpaid and overworked, with their shoestring budget productions, (usually) badly recorded soundtracks, and minimal and often old-fashioned staging values, but that's the world of dance for you.  A dancer - a good dancer, particularly - is a wondrous thing, an athlete swathed in beauty, driven by a vocation as all-consuming as holy orders, so that even under the patchiest of circumstances, they can still communicate their own passion for their art, and their devotion to their craft.  I was merely expecting an honest evening's entertainment; it's the only Nutcracker I'm going to see live on stage this season.  What I got was the most charmless and graceless performance I've ever seen! So, that's as much of a review as I'm going to give, and the company concerned deserves no recognition, not even a name.

[Next : 21st November]

Royal Ballet (HD broadcast), 12/11/2015

Viscera (chor. Liam Scarlett, mus. Lowell Liebermann)
Afternoon of a Faun (chor. Jerome Robbins, mus. Debussy)
Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux (chor. Balanchine, mus. Tchaikovsky)
Carmen (chor. Carlos Acosta, mus. Bizet, arr. Yates)

Robert Clark, piano
Fiona Kimm, mezzo-soprano
Royal Opera Extra Chorus
Artists of the Royal Ballet
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Emmanuel Plasson
Martin Yates (Carmen)

Maki Namekawa, 07/11/2015

Philip Glass : The Etudes

Maki Namekawa, piano

SCO, 06/11/2015

Brahms : Variations on a Theme of Joseph Haydn
Wagner : Wesendonck-Lieder (Karen Cargill, mezzo-soprano)
Wagner : Siegfried Idyll
Schubert : Symphony No. 8 "Unfinished"

Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Emmanuel Krivine

Kneehigh, 03/11/2015

Daphne du Maurier : Rebecca

Adapted and directed by Emma Rice