Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
March’s lunchtime offering in the Kirklees Concert Season was a set played by Blair Sinclair on trombone and Darius Battiwalla, piano. Not your normal combination, but you know by now that I don’t do normal. The other thing which was not quite conventional was that Guilmant’s Morceau Symphonique, refered to in the title of the…
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This was a night to remember in so many different ways. First, I finally broke my duck, insofar as full-length ballets are concerned, after three hospital confinements coincided exactly with previous invitations from Northern Ballet to their productions of Nutcracker (twice) and The Great Gatsby. Thank you for sticking with me. Second, I met some…
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In the words of that esteemed philosopher and New York Yankees baseball catcher in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, Yogi Berra, ‘It’s like déjà vu all over again.’ My last visit to a lunchtime concert at Dewsbury Town Hall was to see ‘Baritone, Soprano and Piano’ during which we were treated to a vocal version…
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As a Yorkshireman I do like a bargain, and here we have a buy one, get one free from Opera North. Cavalleria rusticana is only a short opera, lasting just over an hour, so it is usually twinned with another concise work, normally Pagliacci, but tonight it was given a change of partner and performed…
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I think that I have found my favourite opera so far, and this is it! OK, the work itself is the usual bonkers story which is so daft as to make you wonder what exactly Mozart was on when he wrote it, but the music, staging, singing and acting were so amazing that I could…
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It was lovely to get back to Dewsbury Town Hall for one of their lunchtime concerts. It is like going to a gig at the village fete or the WI, with home-made soup, sandwiches and cake, followed by a presentation. Instead for a ‘humorous’ speech from the vicar, however, we were treated to a trio…
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Last Thursday saw the latest in the Distilled series of concerts. Sadly we didn’t get a complimentary dram to see us through the evening, but something just as intoxicating in Mahler’s 4th Symphony. The name of the event signifies that the work has been distilled into a chamber piece using a much smaller group of…
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Obviously there are not a lot of lilacs to be gathered in the middle of Dewsbury, this was the title of the latest in the Kirklees Concert Season from Opera North. It was a collection of English songs, although that was stretching things just a touch in a couple of cases. Traditional, and not so…
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No, the small case ‘r’ in the title is not a mistake, Italian operas, I have recently found out, do not use upper case in titles except for the first letter in the sentence. You’re welcome. Regardless of the grammar, this is the third and final work in Opera North’s Green Season devoted to making…
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Well, The Green Season has hit with a vengeance. Not only are all of the components of the production, such as costumes, scenery, sets and props being reused or made from recycled or second-hand elements, but this opera is concerned with the fate of the planet and the devastation it is facing. Being opera it…
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Tyke It To The Limit 