Friday, June 14, 2019
We should celebrate the fact that within the space of a year London has played host to stagings of not one but two Sondheim masterpieces that have all but redefined them in theatrical terms:…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 12:00PMTuesday, June 4, 2019
I was a little late to the party in respect of Vladimir Jurowski’s scintillating new recording of the original 1877 version of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake with the State Academic Symphony Or…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 11:00AMThursday, April 25, 2019
Leonard Bernstein and André Previn very different animals. But their completeness as musicians, their ability to embrace and cherish music of spectacularly diverse genres, their connection …
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMThursday, March 28, 2019
In Joyce DiDonato’s album Songplay we have the epitome of what we Brits call a ‘Marmite’ experience with elements to love and/or loathe whether or not you buy the concept in the first …
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMWednesday, March 27, 2019
New York City Center Encores – an NYC haven for neglected or forgotten shows – have now revived Brigadoon six times, a testament to its enduring appeal, and this latest manifestation wit…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 02:00PMMonday, February 4, 2019
I have often been asked if I listen to music differently when reviewing or not reviewing. It’s an interesting question. There is, you could say, a heightened level of awareness when ‘in …
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 10:00AMTuesday, January 8, 2019
The recent revival of The Gershwins’ Porgy & Bess at English National Opera and the prospect of comparing all its available recordings in BBC Radio 3’s Record Review has prompted me…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMSaturday, January 5, 2019
Renée Fleming’s choices are shrewd and wide-ranging in her Broadway album, embracing the contemporary and the classic in pretty much equal measure whilst demonstrating that style in this …
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 12:00PMSaturday, December 8, 2018
It’s the earnestness that doesn’t ring true in Simon Rattle and LSO’s recording of Bernstein’s Wonderful Town, the way in which that which should come naturally simply sounds overwor…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 12:00PMFriday, October 19, 2018
This is also a beautifully sung revival of Carousel on Broadway – and even having not seen it I can tell that these terrific artists are truly ‘acting through song’.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 12:00PMSaturday, August 18, 2018
There wasn’t much that Leonard Bernstein didn’t try his hand at at least once – and wanting, needing, to experience it all applied as surely to the music he wrote as to the music he co…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMMonday, June 25, 2018
It’s an amazing time for diversity of style in “musicals” on both sides of the pond. Hamilton’s hip-hop, street poetry, storytelling, David Yazbek’s middle-eastern infused charmer …
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMWednesday, April 4, 2018
The sound of tapping feet invokes a whole era of classic Broadway and Hollywood musicals and when the curtain rises on this tap-infused extravaganza it pauses 18 inches or so off the stage t…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMWednesday, June 28, 2017
Comparing Notes brings stars of the West End and Broadway to Pizza Express Live Holborn. In a lively and informal mix of performance and conversation host Edward Seckerson will be getting up…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 05:00AMThursday, December 15, 2016
With such songs comes great responsibility and of the many things that makes the West End arrival of Dreamgirls such a dazzling affair we must first applaud the casting. Every soul on the Sa…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 05:44AMTuesday, November 8, 2016
Lazarus will undoubtedly be regarded by some as pretentious on an industrial scale – and in some respects it is – but only if you have never bought in to the Bowie ethos.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 04:26AMThursday, November 3, 2016
You almost wonder where this show can possibly go when the opening number is so strong, so emotive, so damn heartbreaking. Cathy is “Still Hurting” from the break-up of her relationship …
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 06:50AMThursday, September 29, 2016
It's one of those true stories you couldn't make up: in 1920s Kentucky, Floyd Collins, visionary cave explorer, happens across the spectacular sand cave of his dreams only to become trapped …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:27PMIt’s one of those true stories you really couldn’t make up. In 1920s Kentucky, Floyd Collins, visionary cave explorer, happens across a spectacular sand cave – the sand cave of his dre…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 06:01AMWednesday, August 24, 2016
Patricia Routledge trained not only as an actress but also as a singer and had considerable experience and success in musical theatre, both in this country and in the United States of Americ…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 11:15AMMonday, August 22, 2016
Well over a decade ago Stephen Sondheim expressed some interest in turning the movie Groundhog Day into a musical. Presumably he, too, would have turned to the movie’s scriptwriter Dan…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 05:43AMMonday, July 18, 2016
Strictly speaking it should have been billed as “Ramin Karimloo and Broadgrass at the London Palladium” – then we might have anticipated the support act and late arrival of the West En…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 03:45AMThursday, June 16, 2016
If anyone harboured any doubts as to how diverse the world of musical theatre can be, this past week will surely have proved an ear and eye-opener. While Richard Taylor and David Wood'…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:27AMWednesday, June 8, 2016
It has taken six years - and Michael Crawford - to bring Richard Taylor and David Wood’s poetic musicalisation of LP Hartley’s The Go-Between to the West End stage. And before the tired …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:40AMIt has taken six years – and Michael Crawford – to bring Richard Taylor and David Wood’s poetic musicalisation of L P Hartley’s The Go-Between to the West End stage; and before the t…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 03:42AMTuesday, May 31, 2016
Taylor writes an altogether different kind of musical in which “songs” rarely arrive fully formed but rather are in the process of evolving – beginnings of songs which are content just…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 06:10AMSaturday, May 28, 2016
Rufus Norris may have commissioned a new adaptation of the Brecht by Simon Stephens to tick myriad boxes of contention from the politics of gender, sexuality, disability, and (naturally) the…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 05:15AMSaturday, April 9, 2016
And amidst the bells, there’s Bryn. Terfel’s Boris – thoughtful and real – is a presence pervading the piece until the fifth scene where all his torments are visited upon him. He is …
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 08:48AMWednesday, February 17, 2016
The old gags are the best, they say – or just the oldest – and in this hugely enjoyable adaptation of the movie Mrs Henderson Presents they come thick and fast from the mouth of the show…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 05:29AMThursday, February 4, 2016
The World Goes Round has been, well, going round for 25 years. The John Kander and Fred Ebb catalogue lends itself to a tight-knit review format – Cabaret and Chicago embrace that genre an…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 05:58AMTuesday, February 2, 2016
It’s a kind of French Mikado. In a distant and exotic kingdom a victim must be found to celebrate the King’s name-day. No little list, no W H Gilbert wit, either, but a handful o…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 04:53AM 
