Music and Opera

Seven years ago, I asked Bruce Springsteen what he meant when he talked of the covenant between himself and his audience. It was a long, thoughtful and thorough answer, and when I transcribed it, I realised he would have won Just a Minute, so clear was his reply. Part of what he said was this: ‘I have built up the skills to be able to provide, under the right conditions, a certain transcendent evening, hopefully an evening you’ll remember when you go home. Not that you’ll just remember it was a good concert, but you’ll remember the possibilities the evening laid out in front of you, as far as where

Nothing demonstrates the inanity of profanity like an undercooked comedy. The famous Spitting Image puppets have returned in a political musical that’s more cuddly than cutting. Writers Matt Forde and Al Murray add a lot of swearing to their punchlines without understanding why. The temptation to use the F-bomb is a warning sign from the writer’s internal editor: ‘Delete and try again.’ To enliven bad writing with curse words is to mistake the symptom for the cure. And the show chooses feeble or irrelevant targets. Rishi Sunak appears as a soppy head prefect who plots with Boris to depose King Charles and take over the monarchy. Their scheme is opposed

Here’s a mystery for you. Why were Spoon, one of the most dynamic, sharpest rock bands in the world, playing a single night in a north London town hall (capacity 890) while Arctic Monkeys were playing three nights at Arsenal’s ground (capacity 59,000) as part of a UK tour that encompassed eight other stadiums in the UK, plus one arena, one park and Glastonbury? It’s not that Arctic Monkeys aren’t good – no one gets that kind of critical unanimity without being good. It’s just that Spoon are better, and better than almost everyone else. Onstage in London, aided by a genius sound engineer, Spoon were perfection So why aren’t

My witty friend whispered that Wayne McGregor’s new ballet Untitled, 2023 put her in mind of Google HQ – it’s certainly a mint-cool, squeaky-clean, future-perfect affair. The set by Carmen Herrera, subtly lit by Lucy Carter, suggests infinite space and distant horizons. The costumes by Burberry are streamlined and sexless. Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s vaporous score hovers over it all in a meditative trance. Ordinary human emotions struggle to express themselves in this brave new world: we have left planet Earth. McGregor’s strengths and weaknesses are highlighted: on the credit side, there’s his energy and intelligence, his sophisticated visual taste, his empowering of young talent, his open questioning of boundaries, and readiness

One of the most intriguing piano concertos of the late 19th century is unknown to the public – and no wonder: so far as I can work out, it has only been recorded once, on a speciality label devoted to neglected French repertoire. As I write this, there are only 11 copies available from Amazon and I recommend that you grab one quickly, because the Second Piano Concerto of Marie Jaëll (1846-1925) demands repeated listening. If you want proof women of the era could move beyond well-carpentered clichés, listen to Marie Jaëll The concerto’s harmonic language is superficially conventional: sweeping tunes decorated by arm-swinging arpeggios. But the melodies are lopsided

Mrs Doubtfire is a social comedy about divorce. We meet Miranda, a talentless, bitter mother, who tires of her caring but imperfect husband, Daniel, and kicks him out of the house on some footling pretext. When Miranda later discovers that Daniel’s loyalty to their children is an asset of inestimable value she invites him back. And he accepts her offer without a murmur of recrimination. The story is based on the cruel imbalances in family law that entitle a vengeful, heartless woman like Miranda to destroy the emotional wellbeing of her children and her husband, and to call her vandalism justice. In this story Daniel is a voiceover artist who

In 1875, Franz Liszt told a pupil of the kiss of consecration – the Weihekuss – that Beethoven bestowed upon him more than fifty years earlier. After watching the young Hungarian prodigy play works by Ries, Bach and Beethoven himself, he kissed Liszt on the forehead and said: ‘Go! You are one of the fortunate ones! For you will give joy and happiness to many other people.’ Liszt isn’t giving joy to many people these days. Take this year’s BBC Proms, which feature only one piece by Liszt, compared to two by Aaron Copland, four by Dora Pejacevic, and six by Samuel Taylor-Coleridge. Over the past decade, Liszt has appeared

This month I’ve been venturing into the further reaches of modern dance – obscure territory where I don’t feel particularly comfortable. In its hinterland is the Judson Church in New York: it was here, during the early 1960s, that young Turks such as Trisha Brown and Steve Paxton began investigating the idea that dance need not involve formalised gestures or what primary school teachers call ‘movement to music’, but could grow instead out of quotidian activities such as running, jumping and walking. From that point of departure, the journey has become ever more extreme and contorted, traversing the realms of performance art and installation, often politicised and sometimes pornographic. I