Jean-Etienne Liotard (2015-16)

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(Royal Academy, London, until 31 January 2016)

This is the first exhibition devoted to Liotard in the UK and it’s long overdue. He’s an artist I’ve always particularly liked, for he seems to represent the most appealing aspects of the 18th century: its increasing informality and its new interest in the individual as a worthy object of study. Born in Geneva, he had an unusually peripatetic life which took him not only to the usual artistic centres of Paris, Rome and London, but also to more exotic regions: after joining the entourage of a couple of British Grand Tourists whom he met in Rome, he spent four years in the Ottoman capital in Constantinople. For the rest of his life his art would be flavoured by the textures and patterns of the Turkish world.

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Xerse (1654): Francesco Cavalli

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Cavalli: Xerse

★★★★★

(Theater an der Wien, 18 October 2015)

Before Handel and before Bononcini there was Cavalli. This first take on the Xerxes story doesn’t enjoy anywhere near as much fame as its younger cousin, and to my knowledge has only been recorded once, in 1985, with the title role set for countertenor and sung by René Jacobs. It’s high time for another recording and, if Emmanuelle Haïm and her excellent cast could have their arms twisted to do it, we’d be in for a treat.

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L’Incoronazione di Poppea (1643): Claudio Monteverdi

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Poppea: Vienna

★★★★

(Theater an der Wien, Vienna, 19 October 2015)

Before seeing Poppea, I’d been warned it was ‘hardcore Regietheater’, a phrase which would normally provoke serious qualms. But even I know better than to go to a Claus Guth production expecting togas and sandals. Despite my conservative tastes I can appreciate regie if it’s done well. It depends whether the director’s taken time to think about the story, or whether he’s simply thrown in sharks, parrots or a live bull for the sake of it. Guth certainly fell into the first category. His production isn’t traditional, but it’s based on an intelligent reading of the story. It toys with the audience’s expectations and makes you think afresh about the dynamics between the characters. This Poppea is good regie: deceptively playful, with a heart of darkness.

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Postcards from Vienna

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View of Vienna

This was my first trip to Vienna since, at the age of fifteen, I spent two weeks with an exchange family in a nearby town. The primary reason for going was to see two shows at the Theater an der Wien, which I’ll write about separately: Francesco Cavalli’s Xerse, which was the first opera to set the libretto later made so famous by Handel; and Monteverdi’s Poppea, which re-envisaged the story as a modern morality tale about fragmenting lives played out in the glare of media celebrity. But for me this was also an opportunity to finally visit some of the city’s great museums, and I thought I’d run through a few of the sights I particularly enjoyed. There’s a couple of obvious ones, but one that will perhaps be less familiar.

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The Fair Fight (2014): Anna Freeman

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★★★★

There were many reasons I decided to give this book a go. It cropped up as an automated recommendation on Goodreads some time ago and the cover’s pretty wonderful; so when I found it in my local secondhand bookshop I snaffled it straight away. Add to that the fact it’s set in my native Bristol, and I simply couldn’t say no. Yet again, I’m pleased to say that Goodreads has come up trumps, because I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it anywhere near as much as I did. This is the best kind of historical fiction: full of convincing period flavour without ever sagging under the preparatory research, and enlivened with meaty characters who often occupy the shifting grey mid-tones of morality and are all the more interesting for it.

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Raging Roland: Cathy Bell

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RagingRoland

(Handel House, 8 October 2015)

 Having been delighted by Cathy Bell‘s Venti turbini the other week, I’d really been looking forward to this recital at Handel House focused on Ludovico Ariosto’s Renaissance epic. The programme was split equally between Handel (Orlando and Alcina) and Vivaldi (Orlando furioso), and Bell was accompanied by two other members of last year’s Handel House Talent group: Marie van Rhijn on harpsichord, and Caoimhe de Paor joining them on recorder for a formidably complicated piece of Vivaldi, on which more later. Fittingly, given its source, it was a recital that offered rage and romance in equal measure. Continue reading →

Goya: The Portraits (2015-16)

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Goya: Self Portrait

(National Gallery, London, until 10 January 2016)

As someone who focuses on drawings and prints, I’m most familiar with Goya as a dark satirist, haunted by nightmarish images of witches and tumbling figures, like those in the recent show at the Courtauld. It’s easy to forget that his contemporaries knew him best for another very different aspect of his art, which forms the focus of this brand new exhibition at the National Gallery: his portraits.

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The Heresy of Love (2012): Helen Edmundson

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Edmundson: The Heresy of Love

★★★★

(Shakespeare’s Globe, 28 August 2015)

I saw Helen Edmundson’s play The Heresy of Love over a month ago and, since the run finished in early September, there may be little point posting on it now. However, in recent days I’ve been turning it over in my mind again, thanks to the novel I’m currently reading: Flow Down Like Silver, about Hypatia of Alexandria. The parallels between these two brilliant women are obvious and crushing. Both were rich in intelligence and wit; both were faced with a new and unforgiving religious regime, which couldn’t tolerate that which it couldn’t control; and both were punished because they strayed beyond the confines of what was considered acceptable for a woman to know. Both stories provoke me to anger. Both deserve to be better known.

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Macbeth (c1606): William Shakespeare

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Macbeth

★★★★ ½

(directed by Justin Kurzel, 2015)

When enthusing about Dorothy Dunnett’s superlative novel King Hereafter, or Kurosawa’s gripping Throne of Blood, I’d always felt a secret shame that I hadn’t actually ever seen the source material: the Scottish play itself. But now I can hold my head high thanks to Justin Kurzel’s new film, which sounded so promising that it persuaded me to go to the cinema for the first time since March 2014; and, with a couple of friends, I descended on Covent Garden Odeon for opening night.

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Handel House Talent Scheme 2015-16

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George_Frideric_Handel_by_Balthasar_Denner

I was flattered and quite frankly rather astonished when Handel House invited me to join them for their 2015-16 Talent Scheme launch event on 21 September (to watch, not to participate, obviously). Every year they take on half a dozen scarily talented young musicians who specialise in Baroque music and provide them with a space to develop their skills with masterclasses, performance opportunities and other guidance.

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