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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
Brazen: Danielle De Niese (Cleopatra) and Sarah Connolly (Giulio Cesare)
Richard Jones relocates the action of Verdi’s Falstaff, in this case to 1940s Windsor. We begin inside a mock-Tudor inn but Ultz’s period sets then show us first the exterior of a wartime semi and later the interior, where the Fords’ chintzy décor and “modern” gramophone form the backdrop to the diversions of the MerryWives.
The 1940s setting is apt: bored womenfolk, their husbands off at war, made hay while digging for victory. Alice Ford’s husband is still at home but the point holds. Nannetta has certainly found herself a dashing GI.
In the third act we’re in a Windsor street, peopled by Eton schoolboys and more common folk. Shops advertising “bridal wear” and “jokes” point to the dual themes of Verdi’s romantic comedy. Jones also finds a neat visual equivalent, in the intrusions of a strapping crew of oarsmen, for the hyper-activity of the score.
The visual gag of a cat reappearing in each act serves to remind us, too, of Verdi’s late interest in the Wagnerian technique of leitmotif.
This Falstaff is a portly gentleman but not excessively so. He’s vain, delusional and irascible but human, too. Christopher Purves captures his ordinariness rather than his outsize quality, making him more interesting as a result.
Meg Page and Alice Ford are decently taken by Jennifer Holloway and Dina Kuznetsova, while Marie-Nicole Lemieux’s uniformed Mistress Quickly has a suitably formidable lower register.
Vladimir Jurowski keeps the action moving briskly but finds time in the last act to revel in the romantic music of Fenton and Nannetta (affectingly sung by Adriana Kucerova and Bülent Bezduüz) and the fairy enchantment, even when the latter is given a sinister twist.
Performances to 11 July
(www.glyndebourne.com).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Offer: Falstaff - Glyndebourne on Tour tickets - Milton Keynes Theatre - November 25 & 28, 2009 - £13 off*
Price: £20.00
Details: A new production from the 2009 Festival, sung in Italian with English supertitles
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* Online booking only
