Journalist, photographer and social commentator.
The Czech Philharmonic will begin its touring schedule for its 131st season with four concerts in Stockholm (Berwaldhallen) and Helsinki. Under the baton of the world renowned Chief Conductor and Music Director Semyon Bychkov, the orchestra will tonight (25 August) […]
Puccini’s Tosca is pure 19th century pulp fiction. It is an irresistible, shabby, shocking – according to the critics of the day– little melodrama that hints at political tyranny and social upheaval. With a cast featuring a sadistic, sex-obsessed police […]
Glyndebourne’s production of Richard Srauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s mash-up opera Ariadne auf Naxos is an absolute treat for the ears. The singers, the conductor and the orchestra are nearly all of a very high standard, crowned by Alina Wunderlin’s […]
Tate Modern’s latest exhibition, Frida: the Making of an Icon, features (only) 30 of Kahlo’s own oil paintings as well as works by her husband, Diego Rivera, and several of her Mexican contempories. The second part of the show displays […]
The set for Act I of Garsington Opera’s revival of Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier is dominated by a large, canopied four-poster bed, with the curtains drawn. Rather than a traditional overture; the opera opens with an introduction (Einleitung) that, as […]
Jack White. You probably only know him as a superb songwriter and musician: drummer, guitarist, founder member of the White Stripes, the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather. And not to forget, The Upholsterers. But there is more to Jack Antony […]
The versatility of Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965) knew few bounds. While he was first and foremost a towering statesman, he could have found success in any number of other disciplines. His stories about his ¨Indiana Jones-like¨ capers in the […]
Gustav Mahler was a Bohemian by birth, but the family moved to Iglau in Moravia when he was only a few months old. It was a largely German-speaking town, and Mahler never learned to speak Czech very well. For Mahler, […]
In his short life, Georges Seurat (1859 – 1891) finished approximately 45 oil canvases. Just over half of these were created during his visits to the Channel coast. Seurat’s seascapes, however, seldom receive the attention they deserve when displayed alongside […]
Light on drama and heavy on formulaic plot solutions, La Rondine sits well outside Puccini’s top-tier operas, but it proves perfectly enjoyable thanks to the strong performances of a cast led by the Albanian prima donna Ermonela Jaho, all under […]
Is the AI revolution going to have as profound an effect on society as the Industrial Revolution had on the Midlands toward the end of the 18th century? Were people at that time as aware of a changing job market […]
The exhibition Gallen-Kallela, Klimt & Vienna at The Finnish National Gallery suggests that Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s more mature mythical style was influenced by his encounters with the Viennese Secession movement. His paintings, it’s hinted, in turn made an impact on Gustav […]