At Home He Feels Like A Tourist

Tag: Benjamin Britten

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  Catching up (Part 4)

  January 2021 to April 2021 The novelty of digital entertainment by now very much worn off but, fortunately, there were plenty of other worthwhile distractions (the return of birdwatching after four decades perhaps the most surprising) for the Tourist to mask the lack of live cultural stimulation. (And travel, which…

  November 10, 2021
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  Catching up (Part 3)

  April 2020 to December 2020 In which the Tourist condenses down 2020, in and out of lockdown, mostly watching stuff on a screen. Don’t worry he also took walks, saw punters when permitted and growled at the state of his disappointing nation, but it is only now he is back…

  November 5, 2021
• Classical Music Concert Concerto Contemporary Classical Culture London Night Poetry

  Horn Calls: Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall review *****

  Philharmonia Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen (conductor), Richard Watkins (horn), Allan Clayton (tenor) Royal Festival Hall, 16th January 2020 Carl Maria von Weber – Overture Der Freischütz Mark-Anthony Turnage – Horn Concerto (Towards Alba) Benjamin Britten – Serenade for tenor, horn & strings Richard Strauss – Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche Broke the golden rule. It…

  March 6, 2020
• Age Ballet Beauty Classical Music Culture Edwardian Fiction Film Literature London Love Opera Venice

  Death in Venice at the Royal Opera House *****

  Death in Venice Royal Opera House, 3rd December 2019 Fresh from the superlative semi-staged version of Peter Grimes from Ed Gardner, the Bergen PO and assorted chums and straight into this. A top drawer new version of Death in Venice from David McVicar. I have fond memories of seeing Deborah…

  January 26, 2020
• Classical Music Community Concert Culture Landscaoe London Opera Place Sea Suffolk Tragedy

  Peter Grimes at the Royal Festival Hall review *****

  Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner (conductor), Bergen Philharmonic Choir, Edvard Grieg Kor, Royal Northern College of Music Chorus, Choir of Collegiûm Mûsicûm, Håkon Matti Skrede (chorus master), Vera Rostin Wexelsen (stage direction) Royal Festival Hall, 30th November 2019 Let’s not waste too much time on this. For this extraordinary evening…

  January 26, 2020
• Chamber Music Classical Music Concert Culture London

  The Doric String Quartet at Wigmore Hall review ****

  Doric String Quartet Wigmore Hall, 22nd November 2019 Benjamin Britten – String Quartets No 1 in D Op 25, No 2 in C Op 36 and No 3 Op 94 All three Britten string quartets in one evening. Courtesy of the Doric String Quartet. Who have been working hard on…

  January 14, 2020
• Classical Music Concert Concerto Culture London Piano Soviet Union Symphony

  Britten and Shostakovich: LSO at the Barbican review ****

  London Symphony Orchestra, Gianandrea Noseda (conductor), Denis Matsuev (piano) Barbican Hall, 31st October 2019 Britten – Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia from ‘Peter Grimes’ Prokofiev – Piano Concerto No 2, Shostakovich – Symphony No 6 Right if I am ever to catch up I am going tp have to be…

  December 1, 2019
• Bible Classical Music Community Culture London Opera Performance Theatre

  Noye’s Fludde at the Theatre Royal Stratford East review ****

  Noye’s Fludde Theatre Royal Stratford East, 3rd July 2019 You might think it’s a bit sad really. A grown man in his 50s on his own at a children’s opera performed by a community that he cannot claim to be any part of. Unfortunately my kids never caught the Britten…

  August 31, 2019
• Culture Fiction Justice Literature London Morality Mortality Opera Sea

  Billy Budd at the Royal Opera House review ****

  Billy Budd Royal Opera House, 7th May 2019 The corruption of innocence, the struggle of good vs evil, Christ-like redemption and Pilate-like equivocation, the conflict between natural and legal justice, the outsider’s struggle for acceptance, repressed, scopophiliac, homosexual desire, the rational, scientific world contrasted with the mythic poetry of the…

  May 20, 2019
• Contemporary Classical Culture Feminism London London Streets Opera Power

  The Women of Whitechapel at the ENO review *****

  Jack the Ripper: The Women of Whitechapel English National Opera, 3rd April 2019 Composer Iain Bell and his librettist Emma Jenkins wanted to call this just The Women of Whitechapel. Some marketing types at the ENO decided it needed to be prefixed with the title of the infamous murderer, charitably…

  April 19, 2019