Arts Reviews

The good, bad and ugly in arts and exhbitions

Saturday

Andrew Roberts

Underneath the arches

Andrew Roberts on Feliks Topolski’s dramatic work of art, which is in desperate need of repair Adjacent to the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank under Hungerford Bridge are some Victorian railway arches which house one of the strangest, largest, most dramatic and most moving works of art in London, a painting that is moreover in immediate danger of disintegration and possible loss. Feliks Topolski’s ‘Memoir of the Twentieth Century’ is 600 feet long and between 12 and 20 feet high. Part autobiography, part historical narrative, part tribute, part satirical reproach, it is as enormous a statement on the last century as it is a vast physical entity itself.

Saturday

Michael Tanner

Cardinal crimes

In my view, and I think that of a fair proportion of opera goers, Madam Butterfly occupies a unique position in Puccini’s oeuvre. None of his other operas can seriously be entertained for tragic status, but Butterfly can and should be. Because its idiom is instantly recognisable, it is easy to assimilate it to the other works, perhaps above all to La Bohème. And then the inevitable invocation of sex, sadism and sentimentality happens, and the elements that make Butterfly a tragic masterpiece get overlooked, or sneered at. With a little attention, however, its amused denigrators might note that, though Butterfly is one of Puccini’s ‘little women’, she is much

Andrew Lambirth

Master of reverie

If there’s one exhibition Tate Modern has mounted which needed the attentions of a sympathetic designer it’s this one. Never have such vibrant paintings begun to seem so dull, displayed to disadvantage on the drab, no-colour walls of the unsympathetic boxes of the temporary exhibition galleries on Level 4. There’s something intrinsically disheartening about the proportions of these rooms: they don’t encourage study or celebration, and their spaces seem oppressive to the extent of being claustrophobic. For a moment, as the visitor steps into the first room to discover jungle-patterned walls, there is hope that this exhibition — so potentially full of a wild richness — will bring these dreary

Tom Rosenthal

Shipwreck of a genius

Simeon Solomon ‘has his place, not far from Burne-Jones, in any record of the painting of the 19th century. Had circumstances been kinder to him, or had he been other than himself, he would have been a formidable rival,’ wrote Arthur Symons in 1925. This Birmingham exhibition is the most comprehensive assessment yet of Solomon’s art, more wide-ranging than the last important show, held at the Jewish Museum in Camden Town in 2001 under the title From Prodigy to Outcast. Poor Solomon needs these evocative titles to pull people in because of his relative obscurity. Happily, the Birmingham show is sufficiently large and well curated that while the epithet poor

James Delingpole James Delingpole

More war

Now obviously in the light of last week’s column I did try to find a subject this week which had to do with something other than war. But then I looked in the schedules and saw that there was one documentary on about the Somme and another about the city of Benares, and that was my plan stuffed, basically. I spend much more time reading about the second world war than I do about the first world war and I think this is partly down to what you might call superstitious empathy. What I mean by this is that, whenever I read about real historical lives, I like to identify

Laura Gascoigne

Embracing Western culture

It’s five o’clock on a November evening, and I’m leaning over a balcony watching a pipe band parading in the concourse below. But it’s not the chill of a Scottish autumn I’m feeling, rather the mildness of autumn in Japan — and the pipers are not Scots, but Japanese members of the Tokyo Piping Society welcoming a touring exhibition of French and Scottish 19th-century paintings from the National Galleries of Scotland to the Bunkamura Museum in downtown Shibuya. If you think London is multicultural, you should try Tokyo — the main difference being that, whereas we British rely on others for our multi-culture, the Japanese are happy to do it

Saturday

Michael Tanner

Listen and learn

Michael Tippett’s first opera The Midsummer Marriage is so great that one can afford to admit that it isn’t perfect. He tries to do too many things in it, and so despite its considerable length — three full hours of music in the Royal Opera’s revival of the 1996 production — there is a sense at the end both that it is almost indigestibly rich but also that there are inconsequentialities, even inadvertencies, as with an exciting conversationalist who starts up so many lines of thought that he has to drop some of them. Even so, it is such an invigorating and uplifting work, especially when one thinks of its

Toby Young Toby Young

Thrilled by Ibsen

Since taking on this job four years ago, I’ve reviewed 289 plays of which, perhaps, 50 have been worth seeing. Of these, only about ten have been truly outstanding and, of these, only five as close to perfection as it’s possible to get in the theatre. Pillars of the Community, a full-scale production of one of Ibsen’s lesser-known plays at the National, belongs in this latter category. It is, quite simply, one of the best things I’ve ever seen in the theatre. To begin with, there’s the writing. Shakespeare might be a better poet and Chekhov may be capable of summoning deeper feelings, but, in terms of sheer mastery of

Giannandrea Poesio

Timeless grace

Some dance works age, some don’t. Yet it is difficult to pinpoint the factors that bestow immortality on something as ephemeral as ballet. In the case of Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon, however, timelessness stems mainly, though not exclusively, from a masterly woven dramatic layout; it is through the possibility of diverse interpretative readings that the ballet constantly renews itself, thus standing the test of time and the changes in performance trends. Such interpretative flexibility is not synonymous with whimsical ad lib, though. The possible readings which the ballet offers to its performers draw upon a well-set choreography. Steps, gestures, solos, duets and choral dances resonate with all of MacMillan’s creative genius.

Andrew Lambirth

Getting to know Powell

Most novel-readers will be aware that Anthony Powell’s celebrated roman-fleuve A Dance to the Music of Time is named after and inspired by Poussin’s great painting in the Wallace Collection. As Jeremy Warren, head of collections at the Wallace and this exhibition’s curator, points out: ‘Both novel and picture examine the nature of mortality and the strange mixture of predetermination and hazard to which human relationships appear to be subject.’ Poussin was one of Powell’s favourite painters, and the ambiguity of his famous image was evidently a useful and compelling source for the fictional dance of Powell’s characters. In the novelist’s centenary year, the Wallace Collection devotes its first exhibition

Russell Chamberlin

Norman wisdom

As a child I would stand looking in fascinated horror at the enormous polar bear pinning down an unfortunate seal. Then on to the equally immense tiger ‘shot by King George V’, roaring and prowling in its glass case. Followed by the mummy, donated in 1827 by ‘J. Morrison, London’. Who was J. Morrison of London and why was he wandering round Norfolk with the 3,000-year-old corpse of an Egyptian woman? History is silent. Bear and tiger and mummy remain in silent companionship in the vast building that is Norwich Castle Museum, but great changes have been taking place around them. The Castle is among the very largest of Norman

Simon Hoggart

Playing with Shakespeare

The notion of updating Shakespeare always strikes me as a curious one. For a start it assumes that the audience is stupid. Do we say, ‘I hadn’t realised that Julius Caesar contains universal themes of ambition and betrayal until I saw it set on the floor at the Chicago Board of Trade’? Or, ‘It never occurred to me that Macbeth might have significance for our time until they played it in a Birmingham Starbucks’? And why doesn’t it work the other way round? You never see The Caretaker set in imperial Rome, or Abigail’s Party at an 11th-century Scottish castle. The one time when this updating works is when it’s

Saturday

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Give us a break

Ten strangers having a black-tie dinner in an airport lounge. That’s the opening tableau of And Then There Were None. The airport lounge turns out to be a posh house on a tiny island to which the guests have been invited by an absent puppet-master named U.N. Owen. Speaking from a pre-recorded LP, the mysterious host accuses each diner of having committed a murder. Naturally, they deny the allegations. It’s not exactly a frisky opening. Ten charges, ten rebuttals. The play silts up in a stream of explanatory jabber. Then the bumpings-off start. A chortling fool drops dead in a pool of jam. The maid is throttled during an afternoon

Mark Steyn

Out of step

‘The motto of the British Air Force Special Services,’ announces Orlando Bloom, ‘is, “Those who risk, win”.’ Close enough, I suppose. Mr Bloom is from Canterbury and, if he doesn’t care, there’s no reason why I should. But it is oddly representative of Elizabethtown — a movie that even as it insists how true it is has an oddly false tinkle. There’s a moment when Drew (Bloom) is telling Claire (Kirsten Dunst) how he ‘really’ feels. They happen to be in a hotel banqueting suite and the groom’s vows for the following day’s wedding are at his place setting, so Drew swipes the card and starts reading them aloud to

Michael Tanner

Perfect teamwork

I don’t usually associate the Vienna State Opera with adventurous programming, but staying in the city for a few days last week I was able, by chance, to catch the première of a double bill of two quite exceptionally rare operas, one of which largely deserves its fate, the other certainly doesn’t. They were performed in the wrong order — if one of a double bill is notably inferior to the other, clearly it should be done first. As it was, we began with Janacek’s Osud, perhaps the rarest of his operas, in a quite brilliant production by David Pountney, who is an old hand at this piece. I can’t

Andrew Lambirth

Full-blooded drama

The National Gallery really is a remarkable place. In addition to displaying its diverse and beautiful permanent collection in increasingly sympathetic and attractive ways, it continues to mount a string of temporary exhibitions of great interest and unobtrusive scholarship. Yet these loan shows are generally housed in a suite of cellar rooms oppressive to the spirit, while the vast book-and-merchandise shop is situated on the ground floor with ample access to natural light. Should it not be the other way round? Is it feared that sales would plummet if the shop were in the basement? I am only expressing the opinion of a considerable proportion of gallery-goers when I ask

Charles Spencer

Lost innocence

It comes as something of a shock to realise that I have known Liz Anderson, this magazine’s admirable arts editor, for almost 20 years. We first met in 1987, as junior sub-editors on the Telegraph’s arts pages, and sat trembling in shock and awe together as the arts page supremo, Miriam Gross, and her deputy, Marsha Dunstan, conducted furious rows over the page lay-out. It was the best spectator sport in town, but attended by the constant risk that some of the fire and ire crackling across the desk might suddenly be deflected our way. We kept our heads down. Liz and I have kept in touch ever since, along

James Delingpole James Delingpole

Rome, sweet Rome

For some time now I have been aware that there was something badly wrong with my life without ever being quite able to put my finger on exactly what. Now, having watched Rome (BBC2, Wednesday), I know: I was born in the wrong place, 1,953 years too late. Take religion. I don’t wish to knock my beloved Chelsea Old Church but I’d be lying if I pretended that it answered all my spiritual needs. I’m superstitious. I do kind of believe that there are lots of other mini-gods and spirits out there besides the main one. I’m constantly looking for signs and portents. I touch walls to ward off evil

Peter Phillips

Beyond the baton

When I am asked what I do, I say I am a musician. The response is invariably, ‘Which instrument do you play?’ When I say I conduct, I am aware that I have passed beyond the easy into the more difficult, but I know at the same moment that I have not lost my audience. They know that instrumentalists need conductors and everyone has seen them, it is just that such figures of authority are rather austere and hard to talk to. But should I be asked what I conduct, and should I say, ‘Singers,’ then I have surely blown it. ‘Musicians’ are not associated with singers and above all

Saturday

Michael Tanner

Shamless love

English Touring Opera began its autumn tour, as usual, at the Hackney Empire, a place I haven’t been to before, and shall hesitate about going to again, not so much because of the tropical temperature inside as the rigours of getting there and back into the centre of London. It was good to see it so crowded, and to see ETO’s very fine performance of Alcina greeted with such enthusiasm. The company’s repertoire and touring plans are becoming ever more ambitious, and it is indicative, too, of the astonishing growth in appreciation of Handel’s greatness that so demanding a production as this can be taken to Lincoln, Ulverston, even Cambridge.