Month: July 2016

Bacchae (405 BC): Euripides

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Bacchae: Euripides

★★★★

(Actors of Dionysus at Osterley Park, 29 July 2016)

In November 2000, when I was fifteen years old, my parents took me to see my first Greek tragedy. It was Bacchae, performed in the QEH theatre in Bristol by the touring company the Actors of Dionysus. I was utterly captivated: by the story; by the simplicity; by Tamsin Shasha’s sexy, dangerous Dionysus; and by the translation. Ever since I’ve been hunting down a translation which begins with that same commanding cry: ‘Thebes! Thebes! First city of Greece! I have come back…‘ So when I heard that, sixteen years later, the company were performing Bacchae again, in an open-air production in the grounds of the National Trust’s Osterley Park, I absolutely had to go.

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The Just City (2015): Jo Walton

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★★★★

Thessaly: Book I

In his book The Republic, Plato dreamed of a just society in which the pursuit of knowledge and excellence would be the highest goal. It was a daring dream, the first utopia: an elaborate thought-experiment which has captivated the imagination of thinkers through the ages. But could it actually work? Athena is determined to find out. Gathering together those who, throughout history, have read Republic and prayed to her that it might be possible to live in such a place, she prepares the groundwork for the realisation of the greatest political fantasy ever imagined.

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Inside Out (2015)

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Inside Out

★★★★

(Pixar, directed by Pete Docter, 2015)

In many ways I’m just an overgrown child (this’ll become evident if we ever have cause to discuss trebuchets or jousting). Although I do watch and read a lot of serious things, I also have a soft spot for well-made films aimed at kids, and a new film has just been added to my personal Hall of Fame: the magical Inside Out. Prepare for a lot of pictures.

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The Valley of Horses (1982): Jean M. Auel

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★★★

Earth’s Children: Book II

It’s time for the second instalment of Ayla’s adventures: a book that significantly broadens out the world which was introduced to us in The Clan of the Cave Bear. Here we finally glimpse cultures beyond those of the Clan, but we also spend much more time with Ayla, watching as circumstances force her to make leaps of intuition ever more daring and more successful. I can’t say this novel was quite as smooth going as the first, but towards the end something clicked and I now find myself eager to head on to the third. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Spoilers will follow, so proceed with caution.

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Blood Feud (1976): Rosemary Sutcliff

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★★★★

After starting my Sutcliff journey with Sword at Sunset, I always intended to read The Eagle of the Ninth next, but things didn’t quite happen as planned. I have a lot of great big thick books lying around at the moment and, while hunting for something short as a kind of palate-cleanser between epics, I unearthed this little novel. It was allegedly written for children but, in the tradition of the best children’s literature, it’s equally rewarding to read as a grown-up. In fewer than two hundred pages, Sutcliff spins a stirring tale of honour, bravery and adventure, the Viking sea road and the golden domes of Byzantium. How could I resist?

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The Idle Woman’s 5th Birthday

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5th Birthday Cake

Today I am five years old! Not personally, you understand, but as a blog. So crack open the champagne and have a slice of cake with me. I can’t remember any more what it was  like not to write a blog: not to have a way of recording and thinking about the books I read and the films, plays and concerts I saw. Now, whenever I come across something wonderful, my first thought on finishing is to share my enthusiasm for it, and to hope that others will come to share their own thoughts and recommendations.

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Divine Comedies: Christoph Willibald Gluck and Thomas Arne

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Divine Comedies: Bampton Classical Opera

(Bampton Classical Opera, 22 July 2016)

Philemon & Baucis (Gluck)  ·  The Judgement of Paris (Arne)

On a warm summer evening, the village of Bampton in Oxfordshire is almost indecently beautiful. The golden stone glows in the sunlight, the leaves look even greener against blue skies dotted with fluffy clouds, and flocks of swifts dart at dusk around the church tower. But one thing sets the village apart from its Cotswold rivals. Every summer, the Deanery garden is transformed by an outdoor stage and Bampton Classical Opera put on productions of lesser-known Baroque music. Past years have featured a wealth of tantalising rarities and this season saw the performance of two one-act operas, given the overall heading Divine Comedies: first, Gluck’s Philemon and Baucis and, second, Arne’s Judgement of Paris.

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The Grace of Kings (2015): Ken Liu

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★★★★

The Dandelion Dynasty: Book I

Choosing books by their covers has sometimes come back to bite me, but not in this case. I’ve wanted to read this novel ever since I saw the simple and very elegant cover design, and the wait was worth it. Although the book has inevitably been dubbed the ‘Wuxia Game of Thrones‘, that doesn’t do just to its dense and labyrinthine originality. Political ambition is interwoven with martial glory, technological experiment and cunning, as two very different but equally brilliant men vie to define the future of a crumbling empire, and the gods themselves are tempted to break their own laws and interfere in the affairs of men. Indeed, so much happens in this book that attempting a summary is doomed to failure, but I’ll give it a go.

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Idomeneo (1780): Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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Mozart: Idomeneo

★★★

(Trinity Laban at Blackheath Halls, London, 14 July 2015)

This is another post from the deepest, darkest depths of the drafts folder, as you can see from the date I saw this opera. Admittedly there’s limited point in posting on something more than a year after I saw it, but the post was almost complete and it would be a shame not to use it. Besides, it can still be interesting to see how different productions approach the same opera. And Trinity Laban’s performance at Blackheath Halls was a particularly intriguing choice last summer, because only eight months earlier we’d had another, much higher profile Idomeneo in London, which hadn’t exactly received rave reviews. It was a brave decision to put on another version of this challenging opera, so soon after it had come back to bite the team at Covent Garden.

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Ercole Amante (1662): Francesco Cavalli

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Cavalli: Ercole Amante

★★★

(Concerto Köln and Chorus of De Nederlandse Opera, with Ivor Bolton, 2009)

We haven’t had a properly weird opera in a while, have we? We’ve had imaginative and updated concepts, but nothing sufficiently mind-boggling to take its place in the Pantheon of Odd alongside the shark and the flying skeletal fish. But fear not, my friends. I have a new addition for those hallowed halls: Francesco Cavalli’s Ercole Amante, designed for the stage by David Alden. Sit back and marvel.

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