Arts Reviews

A classical concert programme is like a set menu, and for this palate the most tempting orchestral offering in the UK this January came from the Slaithwaite Philharmonic under its conductor Benjamin Ellin. They opened with a suite from Bernard Herrmann’s Vertigo, and the inclusion of Hollywood film music in a ‘straight’ classical programme was interesting in itself. Film music has been around for more than a century now. Many scores are fully as effective in concert as (say) Schubert’s Rosamunde or Beethoven’s Egmont, and yet this almost never happens. Film scores (unless by a big beast of the classical world) are generally hived off into ‘pops’ nights. Snobbery is

Two podcast MOTs this week. I am a long-term listener of sex and relationships podcast Savage Love, hosted by Seattle-based Dan Savage. And tuning in to his most recent instalment, I can confirm it is still fabulous. A quick primer for those not familiar: Savage is famous for giving the world such gems as ‘monogamish’ (mostly monogamous; Savage and underwear model husband Terry were monogamish before becoming poly),  ‘fuck first’ (do the deed before, not after, your huge romantic meal), and ‘DTMI’ (dump the motherfucker). Savage’s intelligence, mellifluous voice, encyclopaedic knowledge of kinks and sexuality, intriguing politics (a true man of the left, he has lost patience with cancel culture and

When I first saw ‘The Triumph of Death’ (1562-63), by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the painting throbbed: this land was sick, smothered in smoke; the fires on the horizon had been burning for ever, turning earth into dirt, air into haze. All was dull, lethargic, ill. When I saw the painting again some years later, the smoke had cleared. Patches of green pushed up from the canvas; the peasantry’s clothes were suddenly bright; the sun appeared to exist. In its new clarity, some of the painting’s jaded horror had been replaced by a sort of comedy. The work had been restored, but something had been lost. That ‘something’ is much

‘The rays of the sun conquer the night’ sings Sarastro, at the end of Mozart and Schikaneder’s Die Zauberflöte. It was the Royal Opera’s first performance of January 2023 and there’s something profoundly consoling about seeing this of all operas at the midnight of the year. The lights dim; five chords ring out and that first triplet from the violins falls quietly into place as Mozart engages the gears and together we move off on our long, sweet journey towards light. In David McVicar’s staging, robed figures process down the auditorium bearing glowing orbs, while Tamino, in late 18th-century frock-coat and knee-boots, clambers out from the boxes and vanishes through