Ismene Brown

Notes on a scandal

The golden boy is weedy with the dresses - swish, swish - and laughable with the sex. And Mark-Anthony Turnage’s score is unmemorable and prescriptive

issue 20 February 2016

How could it possibly go wrong? The magnetic, seething Russian star Natalia Osipova playing the tragic woman in John Singer Sargent’s magnetic, enigmatic portrait of Madame X, all alabaster skin, black dress and arrogantly sexy profile. A Mark-Anthony Turnage-commissioned score, a top-prestige Bolshoi co-production, and enough scenery to rebuild Canary Wharf.

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