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
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
I totally recommend Babbo to anyone who is looking for really good and traditional Italian food
Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
Barry Millington's rating
Reader rating
Description: Kirill Karabits conducts the orchestra for Stravinsky's The Fairy's Kiss, Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto and excerpts from Khachaturian's Spartacus and Hopak from his Gayane Suite No 3. With violinist Julian Rachlin.
Phone: 0207589 8212
Website: www.royalalberthall.com
Trains: Tube: High Street Kensington 
, Tube / Bus: 9, 10, 52, 360 
Extra info: Pub, Food
The lush harmonies of Tchaikovsky and the spare aesthetic of Stravinsky may seem poles apart, but the later composer pays an unmistakably affectionate tribute to the earlier in his ballet The Fairy’s Kiss.
This latest instalment of the Stravinsky ballet cycle was offered by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under its new principal conductor, Kirill Karabits.
Notwithstanding a few dodgy moments, the enchanted world of Hans Christian Andersen’s Ice Maiden and the tender music she evokes were realised by these players under a conductor alive to the nuances of an understated score.
After Tchaikovsky refracted through a Stravinskyan prism came the genuine article in the shape of the Violin Concerto. Karabits again proved responsive to expressive flexibility, not least when the soloist, the Lithuanian-born Julian Rachlin, elected to veer off-piste, in a subjective rendering of choice passages, to rather captivating effect.
Rachlin also demonstrated an eagerness to engage in artistic communion with orchestral members: woodwind soloists in the second movement, the string ensemble in the earthy dances of the finale.
The full-blooded Romantic rhetoric of Khachaturian’s Spartacus makes even Tchaikovsky sound inhibited and Karabits certainly couldn’t be accused of failing to milk the emotion of the famous Adagio.
At the end of another long evening — the notion of less being more seems to be out of favour this year — the audience were ready to help the Hopak from Khachaturian’s Gayane on its ever-accelerating way with a clap-along.
Information: 0845 4015040, www.bbc.co.uk/proms. To be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 20 August at 2pm.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
