Weather Tonight: 9°c Light showers Morning: 14°c Overcast

Critics' Choice

Film

Andrew O'Hagan

quoteNew Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of itquote

Andrew O'Hagan The Twilight Saga: New Moon Theatre

Henry Hitchings

quoteA smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusionquote

Henry Hitchings Cock Restaurants

David Sexton

quoteKitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave quote

David Sexton Kitchen W8

Reader reviews

Film

Adam, Harrow

quoteToo long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effectsquote

2012 Theatre

Rob, London

quoteThis is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flawsquote

The Habit Of Art Music

Bernard, London

quoteAlex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factorquote

Alexandra Burke

Theatre & comedy reviews London,

English National Opera: Duke Bluebeard's Castle, The Rite Of Spring

Your rating
one startwo starthree starfour starfive star
Click on a star to rate
London Coliseum
St Martin's Lane, WC2N 4ES

Evening Standard rating Barry Millington's rating
Evening Standard rating Reader rating
 Add your review

Dir: Edward Gardner (cond), Daniel Kramer (dir), Michael Keegan-Dolan (dir).
Cast: Clive Bayley (Duke Bluebeard), Michaela Martens (judith), Fabulous Beast


Description: Edward Gardner conducts a double bill of opera and ballet, featuring Bartok's only opera, directed by Daniel Kramer and Stravinsky's dark ballet directed by Michael Keegan-Dolan and performed by Fabulous Beast.


Times: Nov 10, 12, 20, 25, 7.30pm, Nov 14, 28, 6.30pm

Price: £10-£87, concs available

Trains: Tube: Leicester Square/Charing Cross Overground network, Tube / Bus: 3, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 23, 24, 29, 53, 77a, 88, 91, 139 Transport for London

Phone: 0871911 0200
Website: www.eno.org
Email: access@eno.org

 
Please wait the page is loading extra content
  • Show details
  • Hide details
  • Book Online
  • Show map
Close X

Directions

 

Duke Bluebeard's Castle is plain sinister

By Barry Millington, Evening Standard  09.11.09
 
Duke Bluebeard

Fritzl parallels: Michaela Martens and Clive Bayley in Béla Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle

Other reviews

Look here too

ENO’s coupling of Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is unconventional but inspired.

Where Bluebeard throbs darkly with a slow-burning fuse, the Rite pulsates with instinctual life (enhanced here by the physicality of Michael Keegan-Dolan’s choreography). Yet the works have much in common too: barbaric and primeval, both plumb the brutish wellsprings of human nature.

Daniel Kramer’s sinister production of Bluebeard, designed by Giles Cadle, gradually reveals the secretive nobleman to be an obsessive sex-killer, perhaps a Sutcliffe or a West. The fifth door, rather than opening onto expansive domains, is unlocked to expose a dysfunctional Josef Fritzl-like family, fathered by Bluebeard.

There are two problems with the production, however. One is that some of Bluebeard’s gesturing is frankly naff. The other is that his representation as a psychotic serial killer limits the universal resonances of the work: Bluebeard’s dark secrets symbolise the emotional and psychological barriers erected by all men in their relationships with women.

The saturnine presence of the central character is evoked by the aptly sepulchral tones of Clive Bayley, while Michaela Martens is an engaging Judith. Edward Gardner’s conducting of both scores is alert and forceful.
To 28 November. Information: 0871 911 0200; www.eno.org

More


Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.

 

Other reviews

[ 1 ] [ 2 ]

Reader reviews (0)

 Add your review

No comments have so far been submitted.


Add your comment

 

Your email address will not be published

Terms and conditions make text area bigger You have  characters left.


 
 


 
 
London's Weather
Tonight
Light showers
9°c
Morning
Overcast
14°c
5 day forecast
 
 

Daily Mail Mail on Sunday Travel Mail This is Money Metro

Loot | Jobsite | Homes & property | London jobs | FindaProperty.com | Primelocation.com | Educate London | Holiday Villas