Henrietta Bredi joins in the preparations for Vaughan Williams’s ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ ‘Come, thou blessed of the Lord’ sing the sopranos and altos, and now the tenors and basses are joining them, with a wondrously layered swelling of sound. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing on end — this is the
Petroc Trelawny visits the world’s largest piano factory in the country where under Mao it was dangerous to play the instrument As my plane makes its final approach into the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, the mountains give way briefly to green paddy fields, and then industry takes over. Beneath are hundreds of vast blue-roofed
Robert Gore-Langton talks to an irreverent Dominic Dromgoole about the Globe A few months ago I was at a literary festival on a drama panel which featured a senior actress of the stage. She was holding forth about working with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford when I suggested that Shakespeare’s Globe was just as
Martin Gayford questions the point of art shows. Should they educate or give pleasure — or both? Towards the end of June, 1814, Maria Bicknell, the wife-to-be of the painter John Constable, went to an exhibition at the British Institute on Pall Mall. It was the second retrospective exhibition ever held in London. The first,
Pete Hoskin on the Hollywood actor James Stewart, who was born 100 years ago The great director and critic François Truffaut once labelled James Stewart as one of those rare actors who could be ‘moving and amusing within the same scene’. Quite so. On the one hand, Stewart — angular, lanky, and awkward in action
Peter Phillips on a Zambian chamber choir which decided to perform Byrd, Tallis and Tippett As calling cards go, renaissance polyphony would not seem to promise a ticket to anywhere much, unless to heaven. When I started giving concerts in 1973, the received wisdom on the subject, even in the UK, was that whole concerts
Henrietta Bredin talks to Sally Burgess about taking on the role of Carmen Just as dancers are fortunate if they have especially long legs and strong, flexible feet, there are all sorts of different physical attributes that can help a singer to produce a good sound. But there’s a particular facial, or cranial, disposition which
Igor Toronyi-Lalic on the power of animation to subvert and propagate ideas The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the American army, on one of its first assignments, requisitioned Disney Studios and remained there for eight months. It was the only studio to suffer that fate but Walt Disney, ever the patriot,
Location, location, location. On the morning that Christie’s prepared to launch the art market’s latest high-profile, big-buck season of Impressionist, modern and contemporary sales in New York — a series beadily scrutinised by the throng of art-world Jeremiahs who have long predicted the end of this particular art-market bubble — the auction house announced that
Stephen Pettitt celebrates the new wave of masterful British productions Samuel Johnson famously defined opera in his A Dictionary of the English Language as ‘an exotic and irrational entertainment’. It’s possibly the most overquoted quotation concerning the subject, but in 1755, when the dictionary was published, he probably had a point. Opera, which for some
Mary Wakefield talks to the RSC’s Michael Boyd and learns how he scared the Establishment Halfway through our interview, in the middle of a discussion about the future of the RSC, a tired Michael Boyd rubs his face with his hands, looks up at me through the gaps between his fingers and says, ‘Well, my
Henrietta Bredin talks to the Young Vic’s David Lan and ENO’s John Berry about the joys of collaboration Walking into the Young Vic these days is a hugely pleasurable experience, and it’s even more of a pleasure to see the delight with which David Lan, its artistic director, looks around him at a theatre that
Susan Moore on how the Americans have become net sellers of works of art Junius Spencer Morgan caused a sensation in 1876 when he paid the staggering sum of £10,100 — more than the National Gallery of London’s annual purchase grant — for Gainsborough’s celebrated portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Since then a seemingly
Mark Glazebrook talks to Sandy Nairne, who explains why the NPG is part of the life of London David Piper, director of the National Portrait Gallery 1964–67, was a brilliant historian and museum director who, while writing a book called The English Face, found that there’s no such thing. It vanished like the smile on
Henrietta Bredin talks to Ian Bostridge about his passion for Lieder and his plans for the future On an eye-wateringly bright and freezing cold day, Ian Bostridge contrives to look svelte and leggily elegant despite the fact that he confesses to wearing a thick layer of thermal underwear next to the skin. As soon as
Toby Jones on how theatre is being used in Malawi to help stop the spread of Aids The interior designer charged with decorating the IT suite probably didn’t have theatre in mind. I am staring at the pastel carpeting, Venetian blinds and the useless plug dangling from the overhead projector: we could be anywhere. The
Laura Gascoigne follows in the footsteps of the 18th-century Grand Tourist ‘I was much disappointed in seeing Rome,’ complained the English traveller Sarah Bentham in the 1790s. ‘The streets are narrow, dirty and filthy. Even the palaces are a mixture of dirt and finery and intermixed with wretched mean houses. The largest open spaces in
Tom Hollander’s first meeting with a theatrical agent didn’t turn out quite how he expected It was the late Eighties and it paid to be brash. But I wasn’t brash I was green. Just down from university and wearing a second-hand double-breasted suit I had a meeting with London’s Most Powerful Agent. On Wall Street,
James MacMillan explains why he hates the assumption that he is a liberal left-winger In my travels I see myself frequently described in foreign media as a ‘left-wing and Scottish nationalist’ composer. The latter label is ludicrous, and I just put it down to a foreigner’s ignorance and justifiable disinterest in the parish-pump tedium of
‘Mr Hallé’s Band’ began giving concerts 150 years ago. Michael Kennedy on the great orchestra On the wet evening of 30 January 1858 in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, which had been opened only two years previously, the 38-year-old Charles Hallé launched his privately funded series of orchestral concerts. On the same date next week,