The haunting of Philip Guston

The haunting of Philip Guston

By Peter Clossick & Corinna Lotz The Canadian-American-Jewish artist’s development is marked by a feeling of restless change, with the ability to reinvent himself, whilst absorbing a wide range of interests, all with a distinct political edge and sense of...
JENUFA, WELSH NATIONAL OPERA

JENUFA, WELSH NATIONAL OPERA

WNO’s latest staging of Katie Mitchell’s staging of Jenůfa (revived by director Eloise Lally) is given an additional layer of significance by current events. Janáček’s is an opera in a Slav language, in a production with various Slav participants, chronicling...
Macbeth, Royal Opera

Macbeth, Royal Opera

By Robert Thicknesse How do you turn a Hammer horror into a tragedy? It confronts every director of Verdi’s take on Shakespeare. Part of it is that the mid-19th century had such different ideas of drama (and of Shakespeare) from us, another that Verdi (and his...
THE VALKYRIE, LONDON COLISEUM

THE VALKYRIE, LONDON COLISEUM

The question of when and where to set Wagner’s Ring is an entirely open one, since like Arthur and Lear, it is everywhere and nowhere. Richard Jones (director) and Stewart Laing (set and costume designer) answer this by locating Act 1 of Valkyrie in a Wickes shed, Act...