gramilano

Annigoni’s great 1950s painting of the Queen goes on show for the first time in 26 years in the Diamond Jubilee Exhibition

 art  No Responses »
May 162012
 


One of the greatest royal por­traits of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury, Pietro Annigoni’s 1954–5 paint­ing of The Queen is to go on pub­lic dis­play for the first time in 26 years at the National Portrait’s Gallery’s The Queen: Art and Image exhib­i­tion, it was announced today.

It will be shown on the same wall as the artist’s second cel­eb­rated full-length por­trait of The Queen com­mis­sioned by the Gal­lery in 1969, the first time these por­traits will ever have been seen together for over a quarter of a cen­tury and only the second time ever.

Since it was first shown at the Royal Academy in 1955, the paint­ing has only been loaned twice, in 1958 and 1986, by its own­ers The Fish­mon­gers’ Com­pany, one of the City of Lon­don Liv­ery Com­pan­ies, from Fish­mon­gers Hall, where the paint­ing occu­pies a prom­in­ent pos­i­tion. This refined paint­ing in tem­pera, oil and ink on paper on can­vas, reflects the artist’s fas­cin­a­tion with Italian renais­sance tech­niques.… con­tinue reading

Aterballetto embarks on a mini dance festival at Milan’s Piccolo Teatro

 ballet  No Responses »
May 152012
 


Ater­bal­letto and its cho­reo­grapher  come to ’s Pic­colo Teatro for more than 2 weeks with a mini Fest­ival of their rep­er­tory. Kick­ing off will be the Romeo and Juliet on May 17. It was cre­ated in 2006 and had a suc­cess in Milan the first time around at the Teatro Arcimboldi.

Never has a story been nar­rated as often, and has crossed as many geo­graphic, cul­tural and class bound­ar­ies, as . In our day, the myth crosses the social cat­egor­ies of the west­ern world, and is prob­ably the most well-known story of our cul­ture. Aterballetto’s take is very mod­ern and high-tech in Fab­rizio Plessi’s design and Bigonzetti’s choreography.

From the May 24 a double bill of Abso­lutely Free and H+ will take the stage.  In Abso­lutely Free Bigonz­etti allows the entire Com­pany max­imum gen­er­os­ity of inter­pret­a­tion and max­imum cre­at­ive free­dom; a col­lec­tion of old and new works, assembled without a real plot… free!… con­tinue reading

Andrea Bocelli’s Tuscan wines go on sale in the US at $20 a bottle

 cuisine, music, opera  2 Responses »
May 102012
 

Around ’s fam­ily home in , in the province of Pisa, Andrea and his brother Alberto, who is more dir­ectly involved, are pur­su­ing work to improve the wines and the fam­ily tra­di­tion. A work done, as Andrea says, in hon­our of the memory of their father, Aless­andro, who in his time pas­sion­ately cul­tiv­ated the vines planted by his grand­father in the Tuscan region bor­der­ing that of Chianti. The wine, mainly san­giovese red, is called Le Terre di Sandro.

The grounds cover a sur­face area of around 120 hec­tares, of which a small part is wooded. Cer­eals are grown in rota­tion with fod­der and, most import­antly, the vines as well as olives. In 2000 the broth­ers planned the devel­op­ment of the wine sector.

Says Bocelli:

My brother and I have begun to try to make a ser­i­ous wine, and the first res­ults are extremely encour­aging. We do it in memory of babbo, who had con­tin­ued the work of my grand­par­ents and who had so much passion.

… con­tinue reading

Juan Diego Florez talks about his fairy-tale wedding, his fans, and being lazy

 interview, opera  1 Response »
May 062012
 


On the eve of Juan Diego Florez’s Albert Hall con­cert, The Sunday Times sent a journ­al­ist to his home in Pesaro. This beau­ti­ful town on Italy’s east coast — home to , and where Pav­arotti had his much-filmed villa — is where Florez has made his base with his wife and baby although, inev­it­ably, he is often away.

As the concert’s pro­du­cers coughed up the trip expenses, Tanya Gold’s piece is, not surprisingly, reverential. She enthuses about Florez’s “gleam­ing teeth, wide eyes and naughty curls. He is so ­hand­some, whole­some and ridicu­lously joy­ful, I ­won­der if he is fol­lowed around by an orches­tra of car­toon rab­bits.” Or maybe she really is besot­ted by the tenor’s looks.

The easy, vibrant top of his voice has made Florez a fix­ture in all the import­ant opera houses in the world. Gold recounts his appear­ance in Donizetti’s La Fille du régi­ment at ’s in 2007 when, after bring­ing down the house with Ah!… con­tinue reading

After falling off the podium 84-year-old conductor Kurt Masur is forced to cancel 2 months of engagements

 music  No Responses »
May 012012
 


After fall­ing off the podium and fin­ish­ing in a Paris hos­pital, the 84-year-old Kurt Masur has been forced to can­cel his engage­ments for the next couple of months after hav­ing found that he’s frac­tured hi s shoulder. His management said,

Maes­tro Masur was very touched by all wishes for speedy recov­ery and sup­port from orches­tras, friends and fans, and thanks every­body for the love and atten­tion that he received after his fall from the podium in Paris on April 26, 2012. While he is grate­ful to have escaped more ser­i­ous injury, a fur­ther scan of the Maestro’s left shoulder has now indic­ated that his shoulder blade is indeed frac­tured. There­fore Maes­tro Masur has to with­draw from all his sched­uled con­certs through the end of June 2012 and hopes to resume his con­duct­ing activ­it­ies at the begin­ning of next sea­son in Septem­ber 2012. Doc­tors at the Parisian hos­pital where Maes­tro Masur has been treated for the past three days are con­fid­ent that he will make a full recovery.

… con­tinue reading

Adam Cooper talks to the Sunday Times about ballet, Michael Jackson, Vaughan Williams and the Kirov

 ballet, interview, musical theatre  4 Responses »
Apr 222012
 

In today’s Sunday Times, Adam Cooper - ex-Royal Bal­let dan­cer, and cur­rently tip-tapping in the West End — talked about the places where he and his elder brother, Simon, grew up. Until their teens they lived in a ‘poky’ flat in Tooting.

The flat was much too small for two ener­getic boys with a musi­cian father who had instru­ments, key­boards and sheet music every­where. Music was so much part of our lives. We used to sing in choirs when we were seven and eight years old.

But when he was thir­teen the fam­ily moved to a house in Nor­bury. Just as well since the grow­ing boys had star­ted to dance:

Sud­denly, I had lots of space, which gave me the oppor­tun­ity to make up routines for us. I cre­ated dif­fer­ent cho­reo­graphy and spent hours mim­ick­ing and Gene Kelly. They were our idols when we were grow­ing up. We were also into Michael Jack­son and Prince.

… con­tinue reading

Dionne Warwick, Cliff Richard, Alexandra Burke and Katie Melua among those singing for World Hunger Day 2012

 charity, music  2 Responses »
Apr 172012
 

At the end of May, ’s Royal will host a gala con­cert for World Hun­ger Day 2012.

The first World Hun­ger Day took place 15 months ago at the Apollo Vic­toria theatre with Dionne War­wick among a star-studded cast, and she is back to lend her sup­port again to an event which will aid the work of The Hun­ger Pro­ject. This year she will be joined by Alex­an­dra Burke, Boy George, Katie Melua and many oth­ers, with rising stars such as Caro Emer­ald and Rumer, as well as golden oldies and . Tony “Down­town” Hatch will con­duct the orches­tra. Pro­ceeds from the con­cert will dir­ectly bene­fit com­munit­ies in 20,000 vil­lages across Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin Amer­ica all of whom exper­i­ence chronic and per­sist­ent hun­ger. This is not due merely to lack of food. It occurs when people lack oppor­tun­ity to earn enough income, to be edu­cated and gain skills, to meet basic health needs and have a voice in the decisions that affect their community. World Hun­ger Day is about rais­ing aware­ness of this situ­ation.… con­tinue reading

Magda Olivero at 102: The problem is that there are many singing teachers, but few of any worth

 opera  2 Responses »
Apr 092012
 

 

Just after ’s 102nd birth­day, (on March 25), the went to visit her. This remark­able woman still has a lot to say. While many of her opin­ions are maybe inev­it­able for someone of such an age (the Mil­anese are no longer well-mannered; mod­ern opera pro­duc­tions have gone down­hill; there are no out­stand­ing sing­ers nowadays), many of her com­ments con­tain an ele­ment of truth, and are not just the rant­ings of a fuddy-duddy.

Here is Olivero on listen­ing to young singers:

So far nobody has left me speech­less. They sing, but without tech­nique. The prob­lem is that there are many teach­ers, but few of any worth. They don’t teach that to sing you must breath and sup­port the voice: a won­der­ful rule that isn’t taught. The found­a­tions are not firmly in place when the singer already starts con­front­ing opera arias. We used to spend years doing vocal exercises.

… con­tinue reading

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