|
| | | Prom 19: Hallé/Elder review – programme full of drama gleams but doesn't quite spark | | by Flora Willson Aug 1, 2022 | | Royal Albert Hall, London
In a programme of Dukas, Respighi and Puccini, Mark Elder and the Hallé conjure atmosphere and electric suspense with precision and lush strings Between the vast audience armed with mobile phones and the acoustic quirks of its cavernous dome, the Royal Albert Hall can be a tough place to conjure a musical spell. The Hallé should know, having appeared at the Proms most years since the 1950s. Under their longstanding music director Mark Elder, this year’s programme was nonetheless all about orchestral atmospherics. At times, it worked. As Elder launched into the opening oh-so-mysterious pizzicati of Dukas’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and the lights went down, there was electric suspense that even the crackle of a steward’s walkie talkie couldn’t shatter. Every ping, shiver, slither and parp of the score’s bag of tricks was present and correct. There was showstopping contrabassoon playing from Simon Davies and more high-gleam polish than a car salesroom. But I missed a sense of fun amid the precision. Continue reading... | | | | | Break stuff! How Limp Bizkit, rioting fans and a huge candle handout led to a music festival fiasco | | by Stuart Heritage Aug 1, 2022 | | Woodstock 99 was meant to channel the peace and love vibes of its 1969 original – until it became a violent, drug-fuelled pit of arson. Luckily, there were plenty of camera crews there … Netflix’s Fyre festival documentary was one of those out-of-the-blue hits that seemed to dominate conversation for months when it was released in 2019. A film about a woefully organised festival that spiralled out of control with alarming ferocity, it was the sort of thing you had to watch through the cracks in your fingers. But something tells me that Fyre festival is going to be superseded, because Netflix is about to release a series about Woodstock 99. Clusterf**k: Woodstock ’99, as it is aptly titled, is a three-part, chronologically told series about one of the most appallingly assembled music festivals in history. Held to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the original Woodstock, which has come to be seen as a benign force of positivity, Woodstock 99 became renowned for the consequences of its spectacularly bad decision-making. The original Woodstock? Held on a dairy farm. This one? An abandoned military base. The original Woodstock had free food kitchens. This one sold plastic water bottles at $4 a pop. The original Woodstock’s lineup included Ravi Shankar and Joan Baez. This one was a celebration of mindlessly aggressive nu-metal. No wonder it ended in flames. Continue reading... | | | | | | | Nichelle Nichols obituary | | by Anthony Hayward Aug 1, 2022 | | Actor who blazed a trail for black women on American TV in the 1960s in the role of Lt Uhura in Star Trek The actor and singer Nichelle Nichols, who has died aged 89, was one of the first black women to be featured on American television in a non-subservient role when she played the communications officer Lieutenant Nyota Uhura in the original Star Trek series (1966-69). She was also involved in the US’s first small-screen kiss between a black woman and a white man, Uhura and Captain Kirk (played by William Shatner), in 1968. When Nichols considered leaving Star Trek at the end of the first run, a chance meeting with the civil rights leader Martin Luther King at a fundraising event changed her mind. “He said I had the first non-stereotypical role, I had a role with honour, dignity and intelligence,” she recalled in a 2011 television programme. “He said: ‘You simply cannot abdicate. This is an important role. This is why we are marching. We never thought we’d see this on TV.’” Continue reading... | | | | | |
| | You Might Like |   | | |
| | |
No comments:
Post a Comment