For all the billion-dollar turnovers and glamorous, high-profile sales in New York, London, Hong Kong and Paris, the top level of fine-art auctioneering is a notoriously high-overhead, low-profit business. At times, it is even a no-profit business (Sotheby’s made a loss last year). How the Big Two auction houses have grappled to respond to this
Glenn Gould called it ‘the greatest song cycle ever written’, entitling his notes on the two versions of Paul Hindemith’s masterpiece ‘A Tale of Two Marienlebens’. Glenn Gould called it ‘the greatest song cycle ever written’, entitling his notes on the two versions of Paul Hindemith’s masterpiece ‘A Tale of Two Marienlebens’. Stravinsky had already
The Blind Side 12A, Nationwide The Blind Side — or ‘The Blahnd Sahd’, as they would say in Tennessee — is so ghastly and annoying and creepy I implore you to steer well clear. I know, I know, it’s based on a true story, Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for her performance, and it’s already
Katya Kabanova ENO, in rep until 27 March Katya Kabanova is Janacek’s grimmest opera, perhaps the grimmest opera ever written, but it is flooded with radiant music, which is decisively stamped out in the last few moments. With Katya having drowned herself, and the happy young lovers Kudrjas and Varvara having taken their most unChekhovian
The Sanctuary Lamp Arcola, until 3 April Eigengrau Bush, until 10 April Furore fever still obsesses Irish playwrights. In Edwardian times there was nothing like a good old riot at the Abbey Theatre to get a new work established as a classic. Luvvie lore is replete with tales of mass walkouts and punch-ups at Dublin
Lewis Carroll invented the word ‘mimsy’, probably soldering it from ‘miserable’ and ‘flimsy’. Lewis Carroll invented the word ‘mimsy’, probably soldering it from ‘miserable’ and ‘flimsy’. Since then mimsy has taken on a separate life. Chambers defines it as ‘prim, demure, prudish’ and Oxford as ‘feeble and prim’, though I think modern usage would imply
I had to rush into the house from the car so as not to miss a word. Two virologists were talking with Sue MacGregor about their favourite books on last week’s A Good Read (Tuesday, Radio 4), and came up with such unusual choices and spoke with such matter-of-fact appreciation, so different from the usual
News that the government is setting up a ‘land bank’ of brownfield sites, consisting of bits and pieces of spare or disused land, and encouraging councils and private landowners to lease these out to local groups as allotments, underscores the impression of a national appetite for ‘growing your own’. News that the government is setting
Public sculpture is a vital element in the built environment. It expresses the sense of identity, the intellectual and aesthetic sophistication, and the moral compass of those who engender, adopt and accept it. At first glance, therefore, you might think that the obligation to spend a certain proportion of new-build costs on the commissioning of
Albert Herring Royal Academy of Music La bohème The Cock Tavern, Kilburn Whenever there is a new production of Britten’s great comedy Albert Herring I go to it and then carry on at some length about how wonderful the opera is, and this particular production, whichever it may be. And it is always true. For
Love Never Dies Adelphi, booking to October The Fever Chart Trafalgar Studio 2, booking to 3 April Love Never Dies has been bugging Andrew Lloyd Webber since 1990. He felt that the Phantom of the Opera needed a sequel and he’s been working on it for roughly three times as long as it took Tolstoy
The Scouting Book for Boys 15, Key Cities This week, I should probably have seen Old Dogs starring John Travolta and Robin Williams as ‘two best friends who have their lives turned upside down when they’re unexpectedly charged with the care of six-year-old twins’ but I saw the trailer on TV and couldn’t do it.
News that the archivist of the Booker Prize, Peter Straus, has discovered that in 1970 the prize was not awarded for technical reasons set me thinking about annual music prizes. This thinking was in no way discouraged by an aside, made by Matt Damon at the recent Oscar ceremony, to the effect that it would
Many years ago, when I decided to ‘become’ a novelist, I shipped myself off to a village in south-west France called St Jean de Fos for three months, banned myself from reading any novels in English (lest they corrupt my style) and became an obsessive maker of French dishes like cassoulet because my first book
It’s such an important book, the first great psychological novel, yet few people can with honesty claim to have read it, and even fewer to have read it all the way through, past the violent rape scene that takes place halfway through volume five. It’s such an important book, the first great psychological novel, yet
By the time you read this, I will either be taking Mrs Oakley out for a well-deserved dinner at Le Caprice or I will be carrying a sack of stones and a pair of leg-irons, looking for a deep river. The Cheltenham Festival will have come and gone, probably taking with it most of my
Painting History: Delaroche and Lady Jane Grey National Gallery, until 23 May Just up the road from where I write is the dramatic ruin of Framlingham Castle, the historical seat of the Howard family and the Dukes of Norfolk. The castle was granted to Princess Mary by her half-brother King Edward VI, and she took
Michelangelo’s Dream Courtauld, until 16 May This is one of the series of exhibitions built around a single masterpiece from the Courtauld’s collection — in this case Michelangelo’s remarkable presentation drawing ‘The Dream’ — placed in an informative context of closely related loans. The Courtauld does it superbly: quietly stated, rigorously researched, laid out with
Tamerlano Royal Opera, in rep until 20 March Handel’s Tamerlano is rated extremely highly by the cognoscenti, indeed routinely listed as being among his two or three greatest operas. I have only seen it twice, once at Sadler’s Wells nine years ago in a production by Jonathan Miller, conducted by Trevor Pinnock, and now at
Private Lives Vaudeville, until 1 May Party Arts, until 13 March This isn’t right. This can’t be happening. She’s over 50. Quite a bit over. In fact, she’s 53 and she’s playing the 29-year-old heroine in one of the finest comedies in the repertoire. And she’s doing it in London. And she isn’t even English.