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An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
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,
Fiona Maddocks's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Phyllida Lloyd.
Cast: Opera North, Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts (Peter Grimes), Giselle Allen (Ellen Orford), Rachel Hynes (Ellen Orford, Mar 5), Christopher Purves (Captain Balstrode), Jonathan Summers (Captain Balstrode, Feb 6, 13, 20, 26, 28), Andrew Rupp (Captain Balstrode, Mar 5), Yvonne Howard (Auntie), Amy Freston (Niece 1), Claire Booth (Niece 2), Alan Oke (Bob Boles), Ethna Robinson (Mrs Sedley), Roderick Williams (Ned Keene), Paul Gibson (Ned Keene, Feb 28), Richard Farnes (cond), James Holmes (cond, Feb 13, Mar 15), Anthony Ward (des)
Description: Acclaimed director Phyllida Lloyd (A Handmaid's Tale, The Carmelites) directs Britten's story of the outcast fisherman, with Welsh tenor Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts as Grimes and soprano Giselle Allen as the widowed schoolmistress Ellen. Opera North's Music Director Richard Farnes takes the baton. Sung in English.
Trains: Tube: Angel 
Phone: 0844412 4300
Website: www.sadlerswells.com
Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts as Peter Grimes
Richard Hickox conducted a superb Philharmonia orchestra
Three decades after his death, the anniversary of which falls next week, Britten's reputation as an operatic composer soars higher than ever. Two works spanning the start and finish of his career were performed in London last week.
Phyllida Lloyd's staging of Peter Grimes, on tour after an acclaimed debut in Leeds, is a mix of abstract and naturalistic. In Anthony Ward's near black set, illuminated by alienating pinpoints of light, sea and shore are only hinted. Despite much in the way of netting and rigging, the landscape of Crabbe's Suffolk Borough is above all psychological.
Perhaps something has been lost on the road south; Sadler's Wells is never an easy theatre. While this was intelligent and musically assured, it did not transcend the sometimes over-contrived theatricality. Casting felt too ambitious and though well sung, and expertly conducted by Richard Farnes, the whole failed to engage. Where Britten gives us
the entire human and natural world in the famous orchestral interludes, we were distracted by mere marine illustration. Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts plays Peter Grimes as a big bully who weeps as he takes his dead apprentice boy in his arms.
Any extra dimension of this complex figure remains hidden. The chorus, however, excelled, and their final accusing cries of "Peter Grimes" had the terrifying force of a hurricane.
Death In Venice/ Philharmonia
Queen Elizabeth Hall
*****
One of the great Grimes of our day has been Philip Langridge, who sang the elderly Aschenbach in a concert performance at Queen Elizabeth Hall of Death in Venice, completed in 1973 when Britten was already seriously ill.
This is surely the composer's most voluptuous score, its limpid orchestration glowing with an array of gamelan-inspired percussion, sensuous harp and piano and richly imaginative string writing, especially for violas and ever prominent double basses.
A superb Philharmonia orchestra and Voices gave an enthralling account, semi-staged with ideal clarity by Kenneth Richardson. Richard Hickox, conducting, has already recorded this elegiac work with Langridge and another definitive Britten intepreter, Alan Opie, here brilliantly transforming himself into Fop, Gondolier, Barber and those other walk-on characters who add to Aschenbach's tristesse.
William Towers gave a pure-voiced Apollo. Langridge's haunting performance was a miracle of vocal and dramatic variety, not to mention stamina. The capacity audience, which included a handful of Britten luminaries associated with the first performance, visibly moved, applauded long into the night. In a year which has had its share of operatic triumphs, this shines as a highlight.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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