18 h. ago Hannigan/Chamayou review – strange and beautiful musical magic

Wigmore Hall, LondonBarbara Hannigan and Bertrand Chamayou were exhilarating and extraordinary in John Zorn’s monumental Jumalattaret; a beautifully intimate performance of Messiaen’s Chants de Terre et de Ciel completed an enthralling eveningOne generation’s “unperformable” is another’s repertoire staple. Tristan und Isolde, Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto and Beethoven’s Ninth were all once declared beyond reach. But when Barbara Hannigan – the fearless, seemingly limitless soprano with more than 100 world premieres to her name – admits that a work came close, reducing her to “a state of panic” over a multi-year study period, you believe her.Inspired by Finland’s national epic the Kalevala, John Zorn’s Jumalattaret is less a song-cycle than a musical seance, summoning a series of spirits and goddesses in sound. The singer morphs from persona to persona in yelps and keening cries, guttural moans and shouts, sometimes anchored, sometimes released by the piano (here Bertrand Chama...

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1 week ago Stranger Things review: Fans will be gripped by the Netflix series' shattering finish but the plotlines are senseless and overly repetitive

And so the end begins. Nine years after the supernatural drama kicked off, the first chunk of the concluding season of Stranger Things has arrived on Netflix. Was it really worth the wait?

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1 week ago Stranger Things review, season 5 volume 1: The stakes are never lower than critical

Netflix’s mega hit is still fun and immersive. But can it stick the landing?

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1 week ago Stranger Things review, season 5 volume 1: Netflix juggernaut has gone full Marvel

Netflix’s mega hit is still fun and immersive. But can it stick the landing?

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1 week ago Stranger Things Season 5, Vol 1 review: a gloriously silly final hurrah

Does it make sense? Not quite, but the propulsive action is more than enough to make up for it

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1 week ago Stranger Things season five review – this luxurious final run will have you standing on a chair, yelling with joy

The kids growing up might have changed this show’s appeal, but they manage to go out in a flame-throwing, bullet-dodging blaze of glory – while still being more moving than ever before Time’s up for Stranger Things. The fifth and last season arrives almost three-and-a-half years after a fourth run that felt like a finale, not least because it seemed the kids had grown up. Having originally aped beloved 1980s films where stubbornly brave children avert apocalypse, the franchise now starred young adults and had adjusted plotlines and dialogue accordingly. Life lessons had been learned. Selves had been found. Adolescent anxieties – as personified by Vecna, the narky telekinetic tree-man who rules a parallel dimension adjacent to the humdrum town of Hawkins, Indiana – had been put aside.But Stranger Things now belatedly returns, with the cast all visibly in their 20s. This is a problem. The whole point is that it’s fun to watch kids outrun monsters by pedalling faster on their BMX bikes...

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1 week ago Stranger Things season 5 volume 1 review – Marvelisation is rife in this juggernaut’s final series

Netflix’s mega hit is still fun and immersive. But can it stick the landing?

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2 w. ago Oasis fans praise 'beautiful' Liam and Noel Gallagher gesture at last reunion show

'So beautiful to end the gig with'

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3 w. ago Holy see: three of Pope Leo’s favourite films are divine. The fourth is hard to forgive

Praise be for The Sound of Music, Ordinary People and It’s a Wonderful Life! But the sinfully twee and queasy Life is Beautiful must be renouncedRobert Wise’s The Sound of Music, Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, Robert Redford’s Ordinary People and Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful. These are a few of his fav-our-ite films Pope Leo’s that is. This white-bread movie playlist has been released in advance of His Holiness’s “meeting with the world of cinema” on Saturday, part of a longstanding Vatican policy of engaging with creatives.The pope has, according to a Vatican statement “expressed his desire to deepen the dialogue with the world of cinema, and in particular with actors and directors, exploring the possibilities that artistic creativity offers to the mission of the Church and the promotion of human values.” The pope will chat with movie notables including Cate Blanchett, Spike Lee, George Miller, Gus Van Sant and Giuseppe Tornatore. Continue reading...

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4 w. ago Vaim by Jon Fosse review – the Nobel laureate performs a strange miracle

In the Norwegian master’s latest example of ‘mystical realism’, one man makes a dreamlike, hypnotic voyage through life“I have always known that writing can save lives,” said the Norwegian author Jon Fosse in his speech accepting the 2023 Nobel prize in literature. “And if my writing also can help to save the lives of others, nothing would make me happier.” Rare is the novelist who talks in such language these days: fiction tends to know its modest place. Fosse, who is also a poet and an essayist, and one of the most widely performed playwrights in the world, follows his own path. A case in point: Septology (2019-2021), published across three volumes, running to more than 800 pages, containing a single sentence. Forget formalism, though; his fictions, often set in fjordic Norway, are disintegration loops, quiet and incantatory, emotionally overwhelming.At fewer than 120 pages, Vaim, his first new work since winning the Nobel, is a wisp of a thing. Divided into three sections, each n...

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