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BBC Proms attract record numbers

Sep 102011

For the second year running the BBC Proms season has achieved record audiences, the BBC has announced.

Attendance at the main evening events was 94%, compared with 92% in 2010. More than 300,000 people attended a prom over the course of the summer.

The season draws to a close tonight night with the Last Night Of The Proms. Conductor Edward Gardner will take to the podium at the Royal Albert Hall for his first ever Last Night, and will be joined by pianist Lang Lang and soprano Susan Bullock

Latest on Phantom’s 25th anniversary spectacular

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Sep 082011

To mark its 25th Anniversary year, “The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall” will be screened live in around 250 cinemas nationwide across the UK at 7pm on October 2nd. The event will be released on November 14th on DVD.

The event will also be screened live on over 500 screens in North America on October 2nd with additional broadcasts in cinemas on October 5th and 6th, with a special encore on October 11th. Canada will broadcast on Oct 3 with additional screening on Oct 22nd. Australia has a special première screening at the State Theatre in Sydney on October 8th, followed by screenings from October 13th – 23rd.

Other International markets including Europe and Japan will hold event cinema screenings during October, with DVD and Blu-ray™ releases following in early 2012.… [continue reading]

Private video surfaces of the anti-Israel protest at the BBC Proms concert

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Sep 032011

A member of the audience filmed the disturbances at Zubin Mehta’s 75th Birthday Prom with the Israel Philharmonic, which led the BBC to take its live radio broadcast off the air. The anti-Israel protesters disturbed the concert as several points during the evening.

In his excellent blog, Norman Lebrecht writes:

The clips remind me of the way the Nazis broke up leftwing political meetings in Weimar Germany.

And Igor Toronyi-Lalic for The Arts Desk comments,

They had a right to stand outside and propagate their views. And they were granted that right. But then they went beyond this right. They imposed their protest on us to the extent that we were restricted in our freedom to do what we wanted.… [continue reading]

At the Proms: The secret alchemy of Stephen Hough’s playing

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Aug 032011

Stephen Hough is one of my faves: a ‘real person’ who can talk about politics and perfume, yet possesses a knock-out technique.

Now those pianists who can squeeze more notes into a nanosecond than Japanese metro guards can squeeze commuters into a train carriage, usually are fairly limited in their social skills. Hours of practising in the dark has deprived them of time for those essential tasks necessary for developing an eclectic mind: flicking through Hello! magazine, watching American Idol and going to Harry Potter movies.

Now while I haven’t the slightest idea if Hough does any of those things, I do know that he doesn’t just play (gloriously) the piano. His wonderful blog on the Telegraph’s site shows how open he is to so many stimuli.… [continue reading]

Critics round-up: Strictly Gershwin with the English National Ballet at London’s Royal Albert Hall

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Jun 162011

Difficult-to-please Clement Crisp gives a four-star crit for the English National Ballet’s dance show “Strictly Gershwin”:

For this show is jolly, welcoming, coasting along on tunes that everyone knows, and it is done with a fine sense of theatre, which has ever been Deane’s forte. In this revival, it is even more slick and brassy than at its first outing in 2008. The company’s dancing is polished, resourceful. All the troupe’s principals are brightly on hand, and former guests – Tamara Rojo, Guillaume Côté, Friedemann Vogel – are splendidly returned.

The Arts Desk’s Judith Flanders disagrees vehemently:

I can’t remember ever enjoying any theatrical experience less. The Albert Hall is not in any case a place for dance – dance in the round is a contradiction in terms, it simply means everyone has a bad seat.… [continue reading]

Fran Lebowitz: “Why do gay people want to get married and be in the military, which are the two worst things about being straight?”

music No Responses »

Dec 062010

Tonight Rufus Wainwright is solo at Carnegie Hall. Here is part of the new Vanity Fair interview where he talks about his recent engagement (both at Carnegie Hall and to his boyfriend Jörn Weisbrodt):

How did you get to the point of wanting to be engaged to Jörn Weisbrodt?

Well, it’s no longer a question of wanting to be engaged. Now it’s a question of being engaged. I’ve been with Jörnn for about five years, and I’m not finding anything better, and I’ve certainly traveled the world and had opportunities to fall out of line, and it doesn’t ever seem to happen. Or, you know, I just keep wanting to go back to him. The other thing, too, is, I’m a famous person.… [continue reading]

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BBC Proms attract record numbers

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Latest on Phantom’s 25th anniversary spectacular

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Private video surfaces of the anti-Israel protest at the BBC Proms concert

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At the Proms: The secret alchemy of Stephen Hough’s playing

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Critics round-up: Strictly Gershwin with the English National Ballet at London’s Royal Albert Hall

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Fran Lebowitz: “Why do gay people want to get married and be in the military, which are the two worst things about being straight?”

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