Liverpool String Quartet at The Music Room, Liverpool
Much-awaited lunctime concert with the Liverpool Stirng Quartet and Mandy Burvill as soloist in Ian Stephen's recently composed Clarinet Quintet. A both delicate and spirited performance of this interesting piece from all the musicians. Looking foward to hearing the Northern premiere of Ian's Clarinet Concerto, again with Mandy as soloist, in the new musical season. The string players were joined by Sarah Hill and Alex Holladay for an extremely energetic and virtuosic performance of Tchaikovsky's sextet Souvenir de Florence. We are so fortunate to have this sort of talent on the doorstep. ❤❤❤❤❤
Rocketman, a film by Dexter Fletcher at The Light Cinema, New Brighton
An over-the-top musical to Elton John songs, centred around and leading up to John's therapy for alcholism and drug abuse. The explanation for his downfall is the standard story of the failure to cope with fame and fortune and the contrast between the shy intorvert and on-stage extreme extrovert (Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe). Taron Egerton does a good job with the singing, although a bit too tall for the part. The relationship between John and Bernie Taupin, his lyric writer is intriguing and well documented and we can only assume is reasonably accurate, as Elton John and partner co-produced the film. The film could have been terminated earlier, at the point where the flashback ends and returns to the rehabilitation clinic and would have been equally good. But a welcome dose of nostalgia for the glam 1970s.
Ellesmere Port Music Society
Interesting programme of two difficult works. First the rarely performed Beethove Choral Fantasia with John Gough as soloist. This piece is effectively for piano and orchestra only until near the end where the choir sing the 6 verses of poetry by Schiller that Beethoven ultimately developed on a much larger scale in his 9th Symphony.
The main work in the concert was a splendid rendering of Carl Orff's popular Carmina Burana in which the augmented choir fully complimented the four excellent soloists and the Wirral Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by LLoyd Buck. A great evening. ❤❤❤❤❤
Wild Rose, a film by Tom Harper at Omni Vue Cinema, Edinburgh
Authentic-sounding Glaswegian accents from non-Scottish lead actors Jessie Buckely and Julie Walters. The former is an off-the-rails Glaswegian single mother of two, still reliant on the goodwill of her mother as she ends up in jail for a drug offence and takes no responsibility for her children as she pursues a wild fantasy of becoming a Country singer in Nashville. Eventually she is befriended and supported by her casual middle-class employer, who attempts to raise money to support her ambitions. However, in the end it is her mother who finds the resources for her to get to the USA and find out whether there is any hope of her dream coming true -- no further spoiler. Sentimental and implausible in many places, but an entertaining film, with singing.❤❤❤
Sweeney Todd, a musical by Stephen Sondheim at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool Typical no-holds-barred Everyman production with exceptional performances by Kacey Ainsworth and Liam Tobin. Energetic acting and singing and usual Everyman audience participation (involuntary in my case, when I had hair-restorer rubbed on my head, without effect unfortunately). ❤❤❤❤
Saul, an opera by Handel from Glyndebourne Opera, on film at the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool
This was highly acclaimed in its live performances last summer. It is a totally amazing and imaginative production of what was written not as an opera but as an oratorio; so the Director Barry Korsky had carte blanche to create this over-the-top extravaganza and the cast seemed to revel in it. Superb singing from the counter-tenor Iestyn Davies, tenor Paul Appleby and soprano Lucy Crowe. But it was also the chorus who excelled here, not just singing, but performing acrobatics while doing so. And the soloists too had to sing in extraordinary circumstances -- balanced on tables, with their heads buried in black sand, or while suckling milk from a hag's naked breast. The future of opera is assured when such fine imaginative productions continue to emerge. So good too that it's not just the elite audience at Glyndebourne who get a chance to enjoy it. ❤❤❤❤❤
David (Iestyn Davies) cradles the head of Goliath
La Forza del Destino, an opera by Verdi, on film from the Royal Opera House at The Light, New Brighton
Highly acclaimed production of the famous opera with a superb cast (Anna Netrebko, Jonas Kaufmann, Ludovic Tezier). Anotnio Papanno in an interval session is persuasive that the opera is a masterpiece, but despite the faultless singing and orchestral support, the plot is too 19th century, too full of religious imagery and just an hour too long to make the experience fully enjoyable. ❤❤❤
Daniela Giordano, piano recital at St. Martin-in-the-Field's London
Extraordinarily powerful performance of the whole of Schumann's Carnaval, by memory of course, in the dramatic acoustics of this wonderful church. This young pianist has won multiple prizes, performed at the Carnegie Hall, New York. Her programme also contained works by Scarlatti and the composer Umberto Giordano, known primarily for his opera Andre Chenier; Daniela (no relative) has recently published a recording of his piano works.❤❤❤❤
Liverpool Philharmonic chamber concert at St. George's Hall
Jonathan Small for the second time in the one day and no problem with that. This time he played Les Citations for oboe and small orchestra by Henri Dutilleux, a fascinating and dramatically virtuosic piece. I missed the first half of the concert, which had been a vehicle for Mahan Esfahani and his harpsichord to give the first performance of Gary Carpenter's Harpsichord Concerto, but was able to hear the fine performance by Esfahani of another of the rare post-18th century concertos for the instrument, by Manuel da Falla. ❤❤❤
Liverpool Philharmonic Oboe Quintet at University of Liverpool
A splendid lunchtime recital of works for oboe and String quartet. First up was the oboe quintet by Ian Stephens, a work written in 2014 memory of two Liverpool oboists: a moving, lively and accessible medium for the Philharmonic's extraordinarily talented principal oboist Jonathan Small and string colleagues. This was followed by a new work written and conducted by Jonathan's son Michael, cleverly working Eastern -inspired themes and incorporating elements of improvisation. The concert ended with a rare live performance of Arthur Bliss's interesting oboe quintet. ❤❤❤❤❤
Everybody knows, a film by Asgar Farhadi at Picturehouse at FACT
This is ostensibly a mystery/thriller but is also an insighful study into the complex lives of a middle class Spanish family. The incident around which the mystery revolves is the kidnap of the daughter of a member of the family (Penelope Cruz) who returns to her Spanish village to attend the wedding of a cousin. She inevitably encounters her previous life and particularly her former lover Paco (Javier Bardem). It is difficult to explain more of the plot -- and particularly the meaning of the title -- without spoiling it, but the kidnap and the way in which the family resolves it opens up longstanding wounds in the small society in a shocking way. ❤❤❤❤
Ray & Liz, a film by Richard Billingham at Picturehouse at FACT
This is not entertainment. It makes very grim watching -- a form of social documentary undoubtedly, a cross between Mike Leigh and a Channel 5 film on benefit recipients, but without the humour of the former or the political bias of the latter. We observe 60-something Ray in a life that is surely near its completion, isolated in one room of a Council high-rise and barely sustaining himself on a diet of strong home-brew. We realise that he has been left there by his family as we then get a snapshot of him in an earlier period in his existence in the 1980s, recently make redundant and living with his abusive wife Liz and his two children. The story concentrates on his failure to rein in the abuse he and his family are subjected to by the dysfunctional but malicious Liz to the point that his children are so neglected that not only is his younger child taken into foster care but his older teenage son asks the authorities if he also can be taken into care. Ray would nowadays be diagnosed with serious depression but is then seen as simply having opted out of coping with a hopeless situation. A very moving incident at the end of the film, in which a popular music track links the moment to a previous scene in his earlier life, shows him clearly recognising the waste of his life. An important attempt to portray the background to the lives of some people whom we designate as being at the fringes of society. ❤❤❤❤❤
The Aftermath, a film by James Kent at The Station, Richmond
Well acted but cliché-ridden tale set in a very convincingly staged bombed-out Hamburg in 1945. Keira Knightley (yet again) plays the wife of a British Colonel sent there to oversee the reconstruction of the city and de-Nazification of the population. He requisitions a beautiful 18th-century house outside the city, owned by a young architect, whose wife was killed in the war. It transpires that Keira Knightley's relationship with her husband is strained, due to their having lost their young son in a London Blitz attack. So, no suprise, she starts a passionate relationship with the architect who, despite the privations of war and, seemingly being obliged to live in a garret in his own mansion, has an array of fine woollen 1930-style sweaters and also manages to own a summer house (not requisitioned), which in the depths of winter is warm and comfortable enough for the lovers to spend their time semi-naked between freshly laundered sheets. And they fortunately have no difficulty getting there even without any visible means of transport. Anyway, inevitably, Keira has to decide between husband and lover, the decision being made, of course, at the very last minute as the train leaves the station with one carriage door conveniently left open so that he (or she -- no spoiler here) can jump on board. ❤❤