This is the LIFE

Welcome to LIFE, St Nazaire. The exterior looks as it always has - this is, after all, the old Nazi submarine base that the Allies never managed to destroy, though they left little standing in the rest of the town. But now St Nazaire has added to the place's usefulness as museum by carving into it a new centre for the experimental arts, featuring Alveole 14, a huge performance space with a back wall that can peel back to open on to the entire harbour...and it is here that my first one-act play, The End of Time, is due to be premiered one month from tomorrow, starring Marie-Christine Barrault. Philippe Graffin, Claire Desert, Raphael Wallfisch and Charles Neidich will play Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time in the second part of the evening. In a special pre-event event, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch will talk about her experiences in the Auschwitz women's orchestra, among other matters, and Philippe and Raphael will play the Duo for violin and cello by Erwin Schulhoff, who was later a prisoner in Terezin. It's the opening concert of the Consonances Festival and the full programme can be viewed here. It continues for a week and features a special focus on Ravel; performers include pianists Pascal Devoyon and Piers Lane, the fabulous Beynon girls (Emily, flute, and Catherine, harp), the Michelangelo Quartet and many more. Info on tickets is here.

Meet the Clarke brothers

Rodney (left) and Andrew Clarke are centre stage in Carmen Jones at the RFH, which I finally got to see on Saturday. As it happens, these sensational siblings are familiar faces from Glyndebourne - and finally they have their chance to shine in central London.

Rodney, a massively tall and very striking baritone, is perfection as Husky Miller (the character formerly known as Escamillo) and Andrew, a high, romantic tenor brimful with charm, plays Joe (Don J) as a repressed mama's boy whose emotions are wrenched out of him in fits of startling violence. He sings the flower song like a dream (and that goes for the original too, which I know because I accompanied him in it in a charity concert a few years ago!). With the gorgeous Tsakane Valentine Maswanganyi, born in Soweto and now a south Londoner, as slinky as a cat as superbitch Carmen and a charismatic supporting cast, it's a terrific night out.

I admit, though, to being an old stick-in-the-mud and preferring the original Bizet. Maybe it was something to do with the production - set in Cuba, yet forgetting that Cubans don't have deep south American accents (or, in some cases, perfect English choir school enunciation!), and that you can't actually take a train ("clickety clack, clickety clack," says the quintet) from Havana to Chicago because there's sea in the way. Suspension of disbelief was difficult. Besides, I don't see why Andrew and Rodney and the rest of these superb singers should have had to depend on an all-black show to have the opportunity to make their mark in such a big way. Sherry Boone as Cindy Lou is the best Micaela I've heard in years.

If I ran a record company I'd give the Clarke brothers a contract prontissimo.

PS - the Southbank website for Carmen Jones features an article of mine to introduce the musical in the context of other adaptations of Carmen. Gorgeous pic of Rodney, too.

Wanna learn the piano?

Enjoy...

Strolling along the proms, proms, proms

Tonight at the Proms you can hear (or see, if within reach) a whole evening devoted to the music of Nitin Sawhney, with dance from Akram Khan and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. There's nobody quite like Nitin - he's a natural multiculti, with early musical training covering everything from classical piano to classical Indian and Flamenco; and he has a strong, focused, poetic inner strength that makes his music his own no matter what the external casing is. Should be amazing.

And on Sunday, Gotterdammerung is up for grabs, the last of the Proms' Ring evenings that have spanned the last 3 seasons. The mention of the Walkure evening still sends people into spasms of ecstasy...

My editor has been keeping me busy over this one, so here's the result from today's Indy, which should cause ACD some amusement if he can lay hands on a print copy - it's the Arts & Books Review cover feature, complete with gory-looking Norns, wielding the title SOUND AND FURY. Not my doing, but I can't imagine anything better.

Covent Garden to present UK Korngold premiere

Yes, Die tote Stadt is coming to the Royal Opera House. Not that they're risking trying to stage it themselves; instead they're taking on Willy Decker's production from Salzburg and Vienna. Thanks to Brendan for the tip-off, and to the Unofficial Korngold Website which confirms it and tells us that there will be seven performances, opening on 26 January 2009. Ingo Metzmacher will conduct and the cast is to include Nadia Michael as Marietta, Stephen Gould as Paul and Gerald Finlay as Frank/Pierrot.

Die tote Stadt, as I pointed out in a comment box the other day, has only been performed once before in Britain; in concert; by a non-professional orchestra (the fabulous Kensington Symphony Orchestra and their inspiring, Korngold-friendly conductor Russell Keable). That was a decade ago. Productions? None. This will be the UK staged premiere. I regret that I haven't yet seen this production, but am relieved that they are not taking the one from Zurich a few years ago - with Olaf Baer in high heels and black wings, 'Eurotrash' indeed - or the ghastly thing that was filmed from the Opera du Rhin and that remains the only available DVD of the opera.

Well, folks, it's about time, too. Better late than never.

Read more about the opera in Brendan Carroll's splendid introduction to the New York production, here.