Album: Härtel Trübsbach - Great Again

★★★★★ HARTEL TRUBSBACH - GREAT AGAIN Heavenly and daemonic viola

Great viola playing combining heavenly and daemonic

When Marie-Theres Härtel plays the viola, she is an astonishing force of nature. If great string-playing should combine the heavenly and the daemonic, the civilised and the raw, hers certainly does.

Die Walküre, Longborough Festival Opera review - heroic defiance of farcical constraints

★★★ DIE WALKURE, LONGBOROUGH OPERA Heroic defiance of farcical constraints

Wagner cut down to size refuses to shrink

Whatever might be said about Longborough Festival’s first live opera since 2019, the first and most important thing is to praise the company without reservation for putting on a show of anything like this quality in the face of obstacles of the sort that normally confront the heroes of Russian fairy tales.

Blu-ray: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

★★★★★ BLU-RAY: THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD Martin Ritt's superb Cold War spy thriller as good as ever

Superb Cold War spy thriller looks as good as ever

Martin Ritt’s 1965 classy screen adaptation of John Le Carré’s bestseller The Spy Who Came in From the Cold is an antidote to the full-colour hi-jinx of the Bond franchise that ruled over the spy movie genre in the 1960s.

Christa Ludwig, 1928-2021: a selective tribute

CHRISTA LUDWIG, 1928-2021 A selective tribute to the great German mezzo-soprano

The German mezzo-soprano embraced the light and the dark at a transcendental level

I only saw Christa Ludwig twice live in concert, but those appearances epitomise her incredible dramatic and vocal rage as well as her peerless artistry in everything she did. The first event was Schubert’s Winterreise with pianist Charles Spencer at the Southbank Centre, at a time when it was less common for women to take on the role of the heavy-hearted wayfarer: the intensity still resonates.

Blu-ray: I Was at Home, But...

★★★ BLU-RAY: I WAS AT HOME, BUT... Cold comfort in this story of family grief from Berlin director Angela Schanelec

Cold comfort in this story of family grief from Berlin director Angela Schanelec

The term most often used about Berlin director Angela Schanelec’s filmmaking seems to be “elliptical”, and her latest film, I Was at Home, But..., which won the Best Director award at Berlinale 2019, is no exception.

Six Minutes to Midnight review - Judi Dench retains her dignity

★★ SIX MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT Judi Dench retains her dignity against the Nazi odds

Confused portrait of a country on the cusp of war

It can't be easy maintaining dignity when everyone in your vicinity is losing theirs. But that's the position in which the inimitable Judi Dench finds herself in Six Minutes to Midnight, a bewildering movie in which star and co-author, Eddie Izzard, spends a lot of time running hither and yon even as the film itself refuses to budge.

DVD/Blu-ray: Mädchen in Uniform

★★★★ MÄDCHEN IN UNIFORM 1930s Weimar study of female sexuality in social rebellion

Striking early-1930s Weimar study of female sexuality in social rebellion

The late Weimar-era film Mädchen in Uniform (1931) was visionary – a delicate Queer love story set in a repressive girls’ boarding school that denounced the Prussian militarist creed as dehumanising.

Der Rosenkavalier, Bavarian State Opera online review - myth-making magic

★★★★ DER ROSENKAVALIER, BAVARIAN STATE OPERA Myth-making magic

A superb cast brings to life Barrie Kosky's vivid Strauss/Hofmannsthal reinterpretation

Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time stalk this haunting dream of a Rosenkavalier. The love games of teenager Octavian and his experienced mistress the Marschallin are sexy and plausible; the comedy of ridiculous Baron Ochs keeps a low profile, but stays real and turns out funny in unexpected places; a winged old gentleman (Ingmar Thilo) embodies the second and fourth manifestations. Does he make up for all the detail in the minor and non-singing roles shed by director Barrie Kosky?

Der Freischütz, Bavarian State Opera online review – marksmen as marketeers

★★★★ DER FREISCHUTZ, BAVARIAN STATE OPERA Marksmen as marketeers

Tcherniakov’s staging heightens the psychological drama, but his feminist angle falls flat

Bavarian State Opera has led the way for live performances and associated broadcasts during the pandemic. Their series of weekly “Montagsstück” events have presented innovative chamber operas, specifically for web streaming. Their next goal is full-size opera with a live audience. That is not possible yet, so instead they are premiering a new production of Weber’s Der Freischütz. Initially it is just for the cameras, but when the doors finally open, it will be ready to go.

Blu-ray/DVD : The Tin Drum

★★★★★ BLU-RAY: THE TIN DRUM A dark and comic vision of Germany's past

A dark and comic vision of Germany's past

Volker Schlöndorff’s brilliant adaptation of Günter Grass’s 1959 novel The Tin Drum hasn’t aged one bit: just as the book and film’s main character Oskar Matzerath decides that it’s better not to grow old, the film’s phenomenal zest feels as fresh today as when it was won the Palme d’Or in Cannes  and Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1979.