Tao of Glass is an astonishing piece of theatre. It seeks to explore the minimalist, meditational music of Philip Glass, which is celebrated in concert halls and opera houses around the world. But how do you give tangible form to music – and the thoughts and life stance which may lie behind it? It’s a
There’s a lot of sexual politics in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. Maybe that’s why I love it, and why the opera remains so popular round the world. I was at the dress rehearsal of a wonderful production coming up at London’s Royal Opera House, with a very strong cast including the South African soprano Masabane
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The 21 new poems at the start of Wish by Maggie Brookes-Butt are a grandparent’s love song, addressed to her descendants. They are designed to be read when the children grow up. The volume of new and selected poems is written in a simple style that wears its heart on its sleeve but it is often
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For Robert Graves, they required solitude and complete silence. They came to A. E. Housman during long walks, after a pint of beer at lunchtime. Michael Longley said that if he knew where poems came from, he’d go there. The nature of poetic inspiration is something of a mystery even to practitioners. W. H. Auden
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When the rejuvenated scholar Faust has slept with Helen of Troy, via the black magic arts of Mephistopheles, the vision fades and he finds himself on a high rugged peak. He marvels at the spectacle of sun-irradiated clouds, and imagines a luscious female form on softest bedding: “I see it! It is like Juno, Leda,
How Faust Was Saved Read More »
Bob Dylan is one of the finest ever writers of protest songs, about the oppression of poor people, young people, black people in the militarist, capitalist hustle of the USA. But what about his portrayal of suffocating or fickle women? When he sings in The Gates of Eden: “Of war and peace the truth just
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Ursula K. Le Guin was a celebrated and prolific American author, spanning many literary genres for six decades, first winning acclaim in fantasy fiction, most notably her Earthsea ‘high fantasy’ series, and also in science fiction. Both had been a male enclave until her arrival, garnering much praise and many prizes. She was generous to
How Words Make Us Human Read More »
Mary Gaitskill’s novel, Veronica, is a meditation on truth and beauty told by its self-proclaimed peripheral protagonist, Alison. The novel loosely tracks her life as she is sucked into into the sleazy world of modelling, through drug-filled highs and lows, pooling around her relationships with her friend Veronica, and her own family, to which she
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This a terrific film about a man who is not there. It won this year’s Palme d’Or for its tragi-comic depiction of a group of dissidents in Iran. It was shot secretly by the director Jafar Panahi, who was only released from his latest spell in prison after a hunger strike. A man is driving
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Some things are defined by the absence or silence around them. In The Histories by US artist Kerry James Marshall at the Royal Academy, we enter a giant visual world occupied solely by black figures. They are not angry or sad. They are just ordinary people, working out who they are and what they are
The Artist of Black Beauty and Reality Read More »
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