Daily Grind Of Still Water

Amplification was occasionally in evidence: perhaps it should have been used throughout Yet this was an uplifting performance. Has any British composer written a better opera since Greek? Not that I’ve heard, and not even Turnage himself, who has since learnt how difficult opera is.Period instrument modes and manners ruled at last Tuesday’s Academy [...]

Do they want Osama bin Laden to win? Or is this merely part of the countdown to war on Iraq, the essential drug of fear which we all need to support Messrs Bush and Blair?For these stories provide a vital underpinning to pro-war literature. In the United States, the intellectuals’ support for war in [...]

And the New World Symphony Orchestra (00 1 305 673 3331; ) is based at the landmark Lincoln Theatre on Lincoln Road.PartyCelebrity-crazed clubbers get an eyeful at Level, 1235 Washington Avenue, where promoter Gerry Kelly gets top US DJs of the likes of Victor Calderone to spin the tunes. Crobar, 1445 Washington Avenue, is [...]

Tabloid commentators are one thing; national governments are quite another. Jack Straw’s public scolding of France’s attitude as “extraordinary” was one of the milder expressions. It is quite wrong for ministers and their officials to exploit popular enmities for cynical political ends: in this case to present France as isolated and unreasonable in the [...]

But if Middle England returns to the fold, that will simply be the continuation of the pre-war situation, with more bitterness on the left and more admiration from the centre and right.There is still a puzzle, though, in how Mr Blair got himself into this situation, with all the risks of the war going [...]

What kind of point, for example, did the Liberal Democrat MP, Vincent Cable, think he was making at Prime Minister’s Questions the other day?He asked about contract handouts in post-war Iraq, which have all been awarded to US companies supportive of Bush. The implication is that Mr Blair is a mug to want so [...]

Saturday’s headliners are The Beastie Boys, tonight stripped down to the basic trio plus DJ supreme Mixmaster Mike. It’s a tight show dominated by hits, and their equally predictable LA millionaire attempts at political engagement.The White Stripes continue to amaze. Two people playing to a field of thousands, they retain their live power. Currently [...]

Film students do the same with hot-shot directors, those lucky creatures who possess a vision of their own Bryan Singer – rich and increasingly anonymous Who’d want to be him now?. What is it about the word “heart”? Constantly shoved into film titles, it has all the oomph of “Europe” or “fish fingers” and [...]

By the time I came to have lessons a couple of years later, I at least knew the geography of the keyboard.”Almost all concert pianists begin as infant prodigies: it’s extremely rare for this multifaceted talent to declare itself in adolescence. Lewis and his parents chanced to see a television programme on nearby Chetham’s [...]

Bergman’s tactic seems to be to make overt what in the original is repressed and implicit. Ms August’s striking and vehement Mrs Alving launches herself at Pastor Manders (Jan Malmasjo) and locks him in a long, passionate kiss. Painted spectre-white and in modern dress like some time-travelling corpse, Jonas Malmasjo’s Osvald – the artist’s [...]