Pride and Prejudice – Jermyn Street Theatre
It’s been quite a week for women in bonnets. First, all three Brontes, then, inevitably, Jane Austin. At Jermyn Street there’s an entertaining adaptation of Miz Jane’s most famous novel with only three actors, in from the Guildford Shakespeare Company.
Adapted and directed by Abigail Pickard Price, who has done a smashing job, it stars April Hughes as a winsome and versatile Lizzie Bennet (and many others), Sarah Gobran, a producer and co-founder of the Guildford Shakespeare Company with many voices and accents as Mrs Bennet (and many others), and a truly exciting discovery of Luke Barton as Mr Bennet and all the male characters and at least two of the other Bennet daughters including a hilarious turn as Kitty, the flighty one who runs off with a soldier. It seems the Victorians had a lot of daughters.
The director and her actors have had to work out how to manage lightening-quick changes from character to character with only three bodies on Jermyn Street’s postage-stamp size playing area and, once you get used to the constant exchanging of coats, hats and props, the choreography itself becomes an endearing part of the play’s appeal.
Everybody knows the story of Pride and Prejudice so part of the fun is waiting to find out how the actors are gong to handle those favourite moments from the book. Ingeniously, as it turns out.
Jane Austin’s own serious intentions are not ignored here although they’re nearly subsumed by having to don the right hat at the right juncture without interrupting the action. Her recurring preoccupation, that the only option for a woman of her time was to make a good marriage, still resonates strongly.
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Leonard Slatkin, born September 1, 1944, blazed trails where none had gone before.
He was the first non-British chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the first (after Sir Charles Mackerras, who was UK resident) to deliver the last night speech. He insisted that the Proms should go on in the thick of the 9/11 attack and, as an American, adapted a programme that reflected the event.
He made his name with the St Louis Symphony in the 1980s, moving on to the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC and then to the Detroit Symphony, which he raised from near-extinction.
His last post as music director was with the Orchestre National de Lyon in France, where the restaurants are Michelin starred and the living is easy.
Massively recorded, he counts a set of Vaughan Williams symphonies among his many triumphs.
Leonard is one of the best audience communicators, a maestro of infinite practicality and without excess vanity. In a generation that included James Levine, Andre Previn, Michael Tilson Thomas and Dennis Russell Davies, he has been an outstanding ambassador for his country’s music and its musicians. He is also a thoroughly decent human being.
From an informed slippedisc.com reader:
Without wanting to deny the obvious managerial issues during Davies’ tenure at OA (summarised in some of the other comments, some entirely valid observations, but also some sexism/ignorance on display), this has got more to do with her programming ambitions for the company, her commitment new operatic writing, and her strategy for developing audience taste in Australia. Davies’ first season was critically fantastically well received, and was a statement of intent: Puccini, Mozart (great), but also Brett Dean’s ‘Hamlet’ in Sydney and Missy Mazzoli’s ‘Breaking the Waves’ in Melbourne, two major critical successes for the company, two operas of enormous international significance and renown, and yet two box office flops in Australia. One has to wonder: is it that those pieces are bad, uninteresting, unengaging, unmoving, overly provocative, ugly, intellectually elitist or whatever criticism could be levelled at them, or is it that the company doesn’t know how to share them with an Australian audience that has been undernourished, and abandoned by real artistic leadership as the art form continues to develop elsewhere.
Perhaps Davies went too hard too fast, but unfortunately there are loud voices in Australia that fundamentally disagree with the entire project on the grounds of either funding or an absence of ambition to be a part of the development of the art form. Opera in Australia is dreadfully funded by international standards, and unfortunately the company is expected to wash its own face in a way that few national companies are expected to do: in Europe there is major state funding, and in the US there is a highly developed philanthropic model. In Australia, contributions from those sources are modest, and so ticket sales are expected to fund the company. The catch is that tickets rightly have to remain affordable, and so there is a model which involves staging musicals to make money with which to fund the (much more expensive) operatic work – a policy which pre-dates Davies. But gradually it seems the creative ambitions of the operatic work are being eroded in order to run the company as a whole as a commercial enterprise. The question is, what does Australia want its national company to do? Perform 30,000 shows of a clapped-out production of La Boheme for tourists off a cruise ship parked up outside the Sydney Opera House that will never come back, or bring perhaps the most internationally-significant Australian opera ever written to Sydney for home audiences to experience. The reality is that as an outsider, Davies’ understands and believes in the power, significance and value of the latter to Australian culture, but very few within the company actually do. She even planned to present ‘Hamlet’ to Melbourne audiences, but that was quickly put to bed. Where’s the ambition for Australian culture, pride in Australian artists, belief in the value and necessity of opera? I was in Sydney to see Hamlet and was genuinely saddened to see the flags around Circular Quay alternating Cosi/Tosca/Cosi/Tosca, not a single invitation to see Hamlet. Were the marketing department embarrassed to be doing it!? If you don’t believe in opera, get another job.
So personally, for all her faults, I think it’s a great pity she’s gone. And I think it’s very important that Australian artists understand that this is the conversation that is happening within OA, not only about new works but about any opera which is not profitable. Time to participate in this conversation if you care about the future of the art form.
My Favorite Things: The Rodgers & Hammerstein 80th Anniversary Concert
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Rodgers & Hammerstein – composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein 11 – together wrote many of the signature musicals of the 20th century, with songs which have survived their original shows and which continue to be sung to this day throughout the world. This partnership became the cornerstone of the Broadway musical theatre and marked a turning point in theatre history.
Before they teamed up they had each had successful careers with other collaborators. Richard Rodgers had partnered with lyricist Lorenz Hart on a series of musical comedies that epitomized the wit and sophistication of Broadway in its heyday. Oscar Hammerstein’s shows with Rudolf Friml, Sigmund Romberg and Vincent Youmans resulted in such operetta classics as The Desert Song, Rose-Marie and The New Moon. With Jerome Kern, he wrote Show Boat, the 1927 operetta that changed the course of modern musical theatre.
In July 1942, the Theatre Guild announced that these very different individuals, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, were teaming up for their first collaboration: a musical adaptation of Green Grow the Lilacs. That musical would eventually become Oklahoma!A milestone in the development of the American musical, it also marked the beginning of the most successful partnership in Broadway musical history.
Ten musicals followed, eight for the stage, including Carousel, South Pacific, The King And I, Flower Drum Song, and The Sound Of Music, one, State Fair, for a film, and one, Cinderella, for television. Collectively, the musicals of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II earned 42 Tony Awards, 15 Academy Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes, two Grammy Awards and 2 Emmy Awards.
Celebrate 80 years of Rodgers & Hammerstein with this landmark concert filmed at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, with songs from The Sound of Music, Carousel, South Pacific, and Oklahoma! Sung by Michael Ball, Daniel Dae Kim, Audra McDonald and Patrick Wilson and featuring a 40-piece orchestra.
Rent for $5.99 or £5.99. Rentals include 30 days to start watching this video and 48 hours to finish once started.
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An investigation by the Australian Financial Review reveals shady goings on at the trioubled Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. According to the report, smears were spread by CEO Sophie Galaise about board chair Daniel Li, alleging unsubstantiated links to the Chinese Communist Party.
Li had previously called Galaise to account before the board over unauthorised spending of quarter of a million Aussie dollars on a consultant, former Sydney Symphony chief Rory Jeffes, in order to secure a European tour for the orchestra. The tour never happened. If the spending was, as Li says, beyond Galaise’s authority, repayment may be requested.
Report here.
The Italian Daniele Gatti took over last night as chief conductor of the Dresden Sataatskapelle, one of the world’s longest-running orchestras. He opened with Mahler 1, inaugurating the first complete Mahler cycle in the orchestra’s somewhat introspective history.
The conductor, 88, on a visit to India, has been talking about the things he misses about the country.
‘I watch cricket all the time. Although I don’t have a favourite, I have of course backed India whenever possible,” he said. Thanks to the 24-hour cricket channel Willow in Los Angeles, Zubin manages to catch up on live and past matches.
‘They broadcast live and past matches. And I watch whenever I can. You know I am very busy also, so I can’t just sit and watch. But sometimes I watch in the middle of the night because of the time difference, I upset my wife a lot.
‘I miss mangoes. Hapus, alphonso. They are not allowed to be sent so easily. Sometimes my friends try. But the customs keep them until they are overripe. That I miss, cricket I watch. Friends I am in touch with…
‘I can’t do without chillies. I grew up with it, that’s my food. There is no such thing as getting along. I have spicy food wherever I want. I grow my own chillies at home. ‘
Source here.
On the busiest weekend of the summer, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra brought its branded concept of joy to New Street Station.
By the look of it, business stalled at Pret.
The Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo has issued this statement:
It is with great sadness that we learned of the brutal death of Franck Lavogez, solo bassist of the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, which occurred on August 26.
Member of the orchestra for nearly 30 years, initiator of many projects and strongly involved in the life of the OPMC, as well as in associative life, his sudden death caused a great shock and immense pain to those who were with him, in the professional context or private.
The Board of Directors, management, members of the administrative team and all the musicians of the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra extend their sincere condolences to his family and loved ones and join their sorrow at this painful time.
We have no further information at this moment. The funeral took place yesterday.
Underdog: The Other Other Brontë – National Theatre
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We think we know who the Brontes were, right? Three sad spinsters with a martinet father and an alcoholic brother, marooned in a miserable manse in Yorkshire with only their writing to sustain them. Well, not so fast.
Sarah Gordon’s new play at the National Theatre is an irreverent retelling of the life and legend of the Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, and the story of the sibling power dynamics that shaped their uneven rise to fame.
The central character here is the ambitious Charlotte, and the play purports to show how one sister became an idol, another became a legend, and the other became known as the third sister. You know the one. No, not that one. The other, other one… Anne.
This is not a story about well-behaved women. This is a story about the power of words. It’s about sisters and sisterhood, love and jealousy, support and competition, directed by Northern Stage Artistic Director Natalie Ibu.
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message received:
As our residency in Salzburg comes to an end this week, bassoonist Štěpán Turnovský and trumpet player Reinhold Ambros will retire on September 1.
Chairman Daniel Froschauer expressed gratitude to our esteemed orchestra members for their dedication and invaluable contributions over the years. We wish them all the best in their well-deserved retirement.
The veteran music critic of the Yediot Acharonot newspaper, Dr Hanoch Ron, died last week. He was 88.
Hanoch was feared early on for his fierce personal prejudices.
But he mellowed with age, like so many others.
