Tonight:
9°c
Latest: Policeman admits murdering his fiancee — also a constable — then staging a fake car crash days before they were due to marry in St Lucia
More...
New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Barry Millington's rating
Reader rating
Vladimir Jurowski's handling of the music captures the fairytale
The title character of Tchaikovsky’s opera Iolanta is blind but doesn’t know it — shielded from the knowledge by her father, the king.
The orchestral introduction, in a stroke of genius, features a plangent wind and horn chorus, the lack of consoling strings a powerful metaphor of absence.
“I feel something’s missing,” Iolanta later says. Poor old Rimsky-Korsakov didn’t get it at all: “Composed upside-down,” he said.
Harps and muted string quartet then invoke Iolanta’s world of longing; she’s also deprived of love, of course, again without knowing it.
Vladimir Jurowski’s handling of this music, exquisitely played by the LPO, captured the spirit of the fairytale to poignant effect.
The mortal peril confronted by Iolanta’s new-found lover, Count Vaudémont (the ardent Yevgeny Shapovalov), provides the incentive required for her cure, according to her dubious doctor (who places more faith in God than in science).
Vaudémont and a miraculously sighted Iolanta find happiness together.
Indeed, everyone leaves content, not least Iolanta’s betrothed, Robert, Duke of Burgundy (firmly sung by Rodion Pogossov), who had found himself another girl anyway, and the king (Sergei Aleksashkin suitably stern and imperious), for whom one nobleman is much the same as another.
Tatiana Monogarova was radiant of tone and affecting in the title role. Unlike Rimsky’s Tsar Saltan, presented recently by the Mariinsky, Iolanta is a fairytale with both psychological depth and captivating music.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
