Barbican
Apocalypse chic: Autechre, Last Days and Southbank's Xenakis day reviewed
Igor Toronyi-Lalic 15 October 2022 9:00 am
It was so dark, my friend noted, you could have had sex or done a Hitler salute. No stage lights,…
I can't recommend this Cole Porter musical highly enough: Anything Goes, at the Barbican, reviewed
Lloyd Evans 6 August 2022 9:00 am
The Barbican’s big summer show is billed on the website as ‘the sold-out musical sensation, Anything Goes’. The term ‘sold-out’…
Even Nelsons’s miscalculations are fascinating: Leipzig Gewandhaus/Andris Nelsons, at the Barbican, reviewed
Richard Bratby 21 May 2022 9:00 am
Imagine growing up with a whole orchestra as your plaything. Richard Strauss’s father was the principal horn of the Munich…
A spirited attempt to fix a show that’s never really flown: Utopia, Limited reviewed
Richard Bratby 9 April 2022 9:00 am
Utopia, Limited (1893) is a rare bird, and one that every Gilbert and Sullivan completist simply has to bag. The…
Felt like being caught on the moors in a storm: Keeley Forsyth, at the Barbican, reviewed
Michael Hann 19 March 2022 9:00 am
It took a moment to realise Keeley Forsyth was there. There were already three musicians, faint figures on a dark…
Wispy, gauzy beauty: This Is The Kit, Barbican, reviewed
Michael Hann 5 June 2021 9:00 am
On the way home from This Is The Kit’s show at a socially distanced Barbican, I listened to Avalon by…
What's an art form that feels unpopular and pointless, but isn't? Video art
Igor Toronyi-Lalic 12 December 2020 9:00 am
How did the universe begin? Did the great god Bumba vomit us up, as the Kuba believe? Or did we…
Unobtrusively filmed, powerfully performed but still unsatisfying: LSO's Bluebeard reviewed
Alexandra Coghlan 7 November 2020 9:00 am
The timing couldn’t be better. Just as the gates clang shut on another national lockdown, trapping us all indefinitely with…
One of the few genuine British visionaries at work today: Richard Dawson at the Barbican reviewed
Michael Hann 31 October 2020 9:00 am
How hard must it be to make music that sounds like no one else? And how unrewarding, often, as well?…
There’s a magic to hearing music in such small audiences: Divine Comedy reviewed
Michael Hann 24 October 2020 9:00 am
Three shows in a week! Why, it was just like the first week of March. There was, however, little of…
Meet the unrivalled Sun King of early music, William Christie
Richard Bratby 23 November 2019 9:00 am
It’s morning in the garden of William Christie, and he’s talking about home improvements. ‘I planted three pines up there…
The Holy Grail of concert-going: I Fagiolini deliver serious musicianship that never takes itself too seriously
Alexandra Coghlan 11 May 2019 9:00 am
We’ve all read the article. It does the rounds with the dispiriting regularity of an unwanted dish on a sushi…
Real psychological horror and a mesmerising heroine: ENO’s Lucia di Lammermoor reviewed
Alexandra Coghlan 3 November 2018 9:00 am
How do you solve a problem like Lucia? Murder, madness, abuse, possibly even incest, all set to a soundtrack of…
A fascinating failure, but a failure nonetheless: ENO’s Salome reviewed
Alexandra Coghlan 6 October 2018 9:00 am
Yes, Oscar Wilde never wrote it. No, Strauss didn’t intend it. In fact, the composer famously demanded the Dance of…
Rattle’s recapitulation: LSO/Simon Rattle at Barbican reviewed
Richard Bratby 22 September 2018 9:00 am
A pregnant silence, a peaty belch from the tuba, and the scrape of brass on brass as gears lock into…
Barry Humphries on Trump, transgender ‘rat-baggery’ and causing maximum offence
Lloyd Evans 21 July 2018 9:00 am
‘I’m an amateur,’ Barry Humphries tells me. The Australian polymath uses the word in its older sense of ‘enthusiast’ rather…
Cold and confusing: Garsington’s Die Zauberflöte reviewed
Richard Bratby 9 June 2018 9:00 am
The picnic hamper’s open, the bubbly is chilled, and country house opera is starting to eat itself. When you arrive…
Dudamel’s Amériques made The Rite of Spring sound like Einaudi
Richard Bratby 12 May 2018 9:00 am
Apparently it’s called ‘expectation management’. Pollux, Esa-Pekka Salonen’s new work for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, takes its name from…
Gorgeous but exhausting: Jurowski/LPO at Royal Festival Hall reviewed
Richard Bratby 9 December 2017 9:00 am
To get a flavour of Joseph Marx’s An Autumn Symphony, picture the confectionery counter in a grand Viennese café. Beneath…
Beauty and the beast
Igor Toronyi-Lalic 30 September 2017 9:00 am
I was going to start with a little moan. About the shouty marketing, the digital diarrhoea, the sycophantic drivel, which,…
Director’s cut
Norman Lebrecht 23 September 2017 9:00 am
Much fuss has been made of the title given to Sir Simon Rattle on arrival at the London Symphony Orchestra.…
Hadyn recreated
Richard Bratby 22 July 2017 9:00 am
‘Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight!’ wrote Elgar, quoting Shelley, at the top of his Second Symphony. He should…
A genuine oddity
Michael Hann 22 July 2017 9:00 am
The most compelling pop singers in music right now — at least in the branch where pop singers still play…
Yes sir, we can boogie
Kasia Maciejowska 15 July 2017 9:00 am
It’s dance — but not as you know it. A giddy mass of flying limbs, sashaying hips and pouty faces.…
Three hours of vomit, fellatio and menstruation: Isabelle Huppert on Phaedra(s)
James Woodall 4 June 2016 9:00 am
A blushing James Woodall is riveted by Isabelle Huppert’s performance in Phaedra(s)