Even more than an outpouring of passionate pacifism, Benjamin Britten’s Owen Wingrave is a universal exploration of the heroic strength of character required to reject decades of blind allegiance to an unholy cause.
music
Grange Park Opera Interim Season. Simon Keenlyside: An Autumn Walk in Wales (available online). Review by Barbara Lewis: Context is all, says Simon Keenlyside, as for the second time this year he delivers a musical tour of his own personal context – the woods around his Welsh home.
By Barbara Lewis • music, opera, travel, year 2020 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, music, opera, travel
A Feast in The Time of Plague, Grange Park Opera online. Review by Barbara Lewis.
By Barbara Lewis • music, opera, performance, theatre, year 2020 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, music, opera, performance, theatre
Poetry review – MOMENTS MUSICAUX: Alwyn Marriage tunes in to a musically themed chapbook by John Greening
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, music, poetry reviews, year 2020 0 • Tags: Alwyn Marriage, books, music, poetry
An unexpected joy of lockdown is seeing world-class performers in their natural habitats. Habitat is the apposite word for Simon Keenlyside, who read zoology at Cambridge before focusing on his operatic career and who describes a love of nature as “the marrow” of his existence. He looks to music for its validation.
By Barbara Lewis • music, opera, performance, year 2020 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, music, opera, performance
For Wasfi Kani, the unstoppable founder of Grange Park Opera, even a pandemic is only a temporary setback. As soon as she had accepted this summer’s country house opera season at The Theatre in the Woods was lost, she set about mobilising the “pandemicists” and amassing funding for a Found season.
By Barbara Lewis • music, opera, performance, year 2020 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, music, opera, performance
Poetry review – The Idea of North: Charles Rammelkamp reviews Alan Catlin’s poetic sketch of the life of pianist Glenn Gould
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, music, poetry reviews, year 2020 0 • Tags: books, Charles Rammelkamp, music, poetry
Bernstein’s 45-minute, one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti is his only oeuvre for which he wrote both words and music and he made the language plain to ensure realism.
By Barbara Lewis • music, opera, theatre, year 2020 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, music, opera, theatre
U.S. folk musician Jay Ungar composed his Ashokan Farewell in 1982 shortly after violin and dance camps he had been running in Ashokan, New York state, ended for the season.
By Barbara Lewis • music, opera, performance, year 2020 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, music, opera, performance
For those suffering withdrawal symptoms, Stay at Home with Crazy Coqs is providing a thrice-weekly fix on YouTube as some of its regular artists post recordings from their homes or reissue previous Crazy Coqs performances.
By Barbara Lewis • comedy, music, performance, year 2020 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, comedy, music, performance
L’Heure Espagnole, Grange Park Opera – an hour of escape into Maurice Ravel’s gloriously light opera bouffe that allows a woman to juggle three lovers with impunity.
By Barbara Lewis • music, opera, performance, theatre, year 2021 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, music, opera, performance, theatre