Reviews of A New Kind Of Wilderness, The Marching Band, Good One and Magic Farm by MARIA DUARTE, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA
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New life breathed into old favourite
SCOTT ALSWORTH foresees the coming of the smaller, leaner, and class conscious indie studio, with art as its guiding star
MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
MIK SABIERS wallows in a night of political punk and funk that fires both barrels at Trump
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
The Barber Of Seville
The Festival Theatre
Edinburgh International Festival
Rossini’s comic opera, composed allegedly in thirteen days, consistently rates among the most popular on the circuit. Opera buffs who find it odd that the official Festival should give airing to such a common favourite will have their doubts put to rest with Laurent Pelly’s wittily scintillating production from Theatre des Champs-Elyses.
The plot, with its stock Commedia del Arte characters and pattern of trickery and disguise, can be taken for granted. The dashing Count Almaviva, in love with enchanting young Rosina, is frustrated by her elderly guardian who has his own plans for his ward and her fortune. The resourceful barber Figaro comes to the rescue leading to an inevitable happy ending.
Pelly and conductor Jeremie Rhorer, with his period-instrument Le Cercle de l’Harmonie orchestra, let the music do the work.
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