We were really looking forward to this piece but found it disappointing.
It felt to us like a rather inconsequential, silly piece trying to be profound.
Cate Blanchett has never really done the business for me on stage. Strangely, with this piece, my feelings about her undoubted abilities as an actress were enhanced but it would have been a struggle for anyone to wring much out of this play.
But actually I was brought up with some early Baroque madrigals ringing in my ears – a reel-to-reel recording, made by my father, from the radio, of Monteverdi’s Madrigals of Love and War.
The extraordinary BBC genome Project allows me to find the concert in question so easily it is almost embarrassingly easy – it was broadcast on 4 June 1974 at 21:50 – click here. I wouldn’t have heard the recording on that day – clearly, but dad probably played it to me pretty soon afterwards and I remember listening to it a lot that summer. The concert had originally taken place in October 1973 – a few weeks after I started secondary school.
But I digress…
…except to say that I had never heard any Madrigals of Love and War live and was keen to hear some – hence my particular desire to book this concert.
Thursday evening is not (and in those days certainly was not) Janie’s favourite night to go to a concert. Nor is Monteverdi one of her favourites.
This concert conformed Janie’s view that Monteverdi is not really for her. All too noisy and the male singing is a bit shouty, she claims. I sort-of know what she means, without agreeing with the conclusion.
Janie did enjoy some of the instrumental music, though…
…here is a vid of some other folk playing the opening number we heard that evening – Falconieri’s lovely Ciaconna in G major:
I recall Janie and I both really enjoying this short, unusual, imaginative piece, written and performed by Inua Ellams.
I think it pleased us more than it pleased many of the critics, many of whom found the piece lightweight compared with its big themes of globalisation, the fashion industry and anti-gay prejudice in Africa.
I seem to recall that this piece charmed me more than it did Daisy. Eduardo De Filippo is never going to be her type of playwright, even when Tanya Ronder writes a spicy version of this uber-Neapolitan play.
A fine production. Samantha Spiro was excellent as the eponymous lead, along with a good supporting cast.
Below is the trailer:
Also an interesting interview with Michael Attenborough about the play:
…but ultimately the play could only achieve so much – I think most of the critics, like Janie, were underwhelmed by the play but they also – like me – found the production charming and worthwhile – click here for a search term to find the reviews.
A double bill of Martin Crimp plays, the first brand new, the second an older one.
Part of the Orange Tree’s 40th anniversary celebrations and a nod to one of its bigger achievements; championing Martin Crimp’s work in the early days.
Janie and I absolutely loved this exhibition of Hockney’s big landscape works.
It was the day after Uncle Michael’s funeral. We had booked a Friday late slot for this exhibition many weeks before. The exhibition was colourful relief after a sad day.
Janie loved it all so much she bought the book and we went off to Yorkshire in search of Hockney’s Wolds the following spring…to be Ogblogged when I get to it.
Hockney says you cannot photograph those Wolds and in a way he is right, but still I did have a go when we visited in 2013:
Below is a video in which curator Marco Livingstone explains the exhibition:
In short, we really loved this exhibition at the Royal Academy.
I have scanned my hand-written cards which contain the entirety of the eulogy, including the crossed out bits that were edited out in the interests of flow and sticking to time. I hope interested folk can read my writing. If not, any half-useful Large Language Model worth its salt should be able to take the images and turn them into clear font text for you to read…well, in any case, you can enlarge the images yourself to scrutinise any bits that look interesting yet hard to read.
Angela & John “a few” years ago – Michael & Pam would approve the photo choice
This concert was the evening before Uncle Michael’s funeral, for which I was scheduled to be the soloist – i.e. eulogist.
Angela and John are patrons of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO). They suggested that I might join them for this concert. An element of bonding exercise and an element (I suspect) of last minute stage management. John had stuck his neck out a little with his Rabbi by suggesting that a member of the family undertake the eulogy and they didn’t want any mistakes.
We discussed matters over drinks and nibbles with the patrons and benefactors before the show.
“Rabbi Rosenfeld is absolutely clear that you should keep the eulogy brief”, said John – who is a graduate of the Arsène Wenger school of management.
“I got the message – I’ve timed the speech; eighty-nine minutes…”
“…EIGHT OR NINE MINUTES…if it goes past ten minutes I’ll shut you up myself…”
…I think John knew I was joking.
Meanwhile, unlike our family funeral, the concert was not going to proceed as planned. The Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin had gone down with “severe gastric flu” (as described in the apologetic programme note).
So we had a late substitute from one of the other dominions, Australia, in the form of Matthew Coorey.
The result was a game of two halves in some ways.
Supersub Coorey was spared the first half of of the concert, as Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili, wisely, chose to lead the orchestra herself in the Mozart Violin Concerto No 3.
I say the first half…of course the Mozart is quite a short work whereas the second half, Mahler Symphony No 9, is a 90 minute marathon. So it was more like an 80:20 thing than a game of two halves…
…I’m digressing. Point is, the first piece I suspect included all the nuance and personality that had been planned for this concert. I have an affection for that simple but charming piece and it was delivered very well that night.
By contrast, the Mahler seemed, while very professionally performed, a somewhat retreated, standard performance of the great work. Hats off to Coorey for taking on such a monumental work at such short notice. But “letting the orchestra just do its thing” is probably as good as it gets in those circumstances.
Here is a short video of Lisa Batiashvili playing at home, Tbilisi. I couldn’t find a legitimate vid of her playing Mozart so I thought this gorgeous piece of Bach would do nicely.
While here is a short vid of Matthew Coorey conducting. It isn’t Mahler…instead it is Kodaly, so there is still rather a lot of early 20th century noise and some unusual percussion – it was the closest I could find:
Verbatim Theatre and Physical Theatre don’t seem, on the face of it, to be complementary genres.
But this piece, conceived by Lloyd Newson and performed by physical theatre company DV8, tries to combine the two, around the tricky subject of Islamic extremism, Islamophobia, multiculturalism, censorship, freedom of speech and hate crimes.
It sort-of worked, in that it got me and Janie talking about those subjects afterwards, but it didn’t really work for us, in itself, as a piece talking about those tricky subjects.
In truth, verbatim theatre about such tricky subjects would need more words and less dance.
