Arts Reviews

Breakfast at Tiffany’s Theatre Royal Haymarket Inherit the Wind Old Vic ‘What do you want?’ a film producer asks Holly Golightly about half an hour into Breakfast at Tiffany’s. ‘I don’t know,’ she says, ‘but if I find out I’ll tell you first.’ At this point my hopes for the evening collapsed. Rule one of the characterisation manual states that a character who wants nothing, or nothing much, isn’t a dramatic personality but a list of utterances enfolding an emptiness. In this adaptation of Truman Capote’s wartime novella, Holly comes across as a camp fantasy, a popsicle of pretentious egoism floating around New York being adored by wealthy fools, fantasising

2nd October New York: Opera Verdi’s Aida opens at the Met, conducted by Daniele Gatti, former principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Lithuanian soprano Violeta Urmana sings the title role. 4th October Paris: Racing The Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is a Group 1 flat race held at the Longchamp course and one of the most fashionable race meetings in the calendar. It is one of the four French Classics and has a prize of €4 million, the second biggest prize on the turf after the Japan Cup (on 29 November). 4th October Japanese Grand Prix This year’s race takes place at the Suzuka Circuit, the only figure-of-eight F1

Aye lads, it’s what you might call a Reiving moon right enough. Taken circa 9pm tonight.

Old operatic conventions will no longer do, says Igor Toronyi-Lalic: no more parking and barking Caricatures are often instructive. Those that acquire legs will offer a crystallised version of the truth. The hoary send-up of opera, for example — the lardy singers, the stilted poses, the outstretched arms — is representative of a historic reality. Opera singers did once park and bark. Character was once illustrated through stock gesture and semaphore. The presumed impossibility of mastering both the singing and the acting meant consigning half the art form to the dustbin. ‘How can you act if you have to hold a sustained note for six measures in the middle of

Henry Moore Textiles The Sheep Field Barn, Hoglands, Perry Green, Hertfordshire, until 18 October Hoglands, the former home of Henry Moore (1898–1986) near Much Hadham in Hertfordshire, was looking radiant on the late-summer day I visited it. The Foundation that Moore set up to care for his estate and reputation acquired the house from his family in 2004 and began restoring it. It gleams today probably more than it ever did when lived in, but a marvellous array of furniture and fittings, art and artefacts (including the original bottles of drink offered by HM to his visitors) ensures that the place still seems more of a home and less of

Andrew Lambirth talks to the sculptor Anish Kapoor on the eve of his major new exhibition at the Royal Academy I interviewed the sculptor Anish Kapoor (born 1954) while preparations for his major new exhibition at the Royal Academy were nearing conclusion. The galleries were busy with technicians so we talked in the Members’ Room (Kapoor has been an RA since 1999). I last interviewed Kapoor 11 years ago, on the eve of his last big museum show in London, when he had the whole of the Hayward Gallery. Now he has been given the grand rooms which comprise the entire main floor of the Academy. Our talk was inevitably

Rogier van der Weyden 1400–1464: Master of Passions Museum Leuven, until 6 December Musée Hergé Louvain-la-Neuve When I was a child in Belgium, architecture was a dirty word — angry drivers would wind down their windows and yell, ‘Architecte!’ The insult dated back to the 19th century, when the megalomaniac architect Joseph Poelaert imposed the enormity of the Palais de Justice on Brussels, forcing large numbers of residents from their homes. Times change and memory fades; architects are back in favour in Belgium. Last week saw the inauguration of Santiago Calatrava’s new birdcage-roofed station at Liège-Guillemins, hailed as a destination in itself — not a description you’d use, unfortunately, of