Arts & Culture
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly – A Review By George Fleeton. Newcastle Community Cinema (NCC), a voluntary, not-for-profit initiative, started life in October 2009 and screens films monthly in the Annesley Hall, the home of the Newcastle Glees Musical Society. On January 28, a small but transfixed audience watched the 2007 French film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
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The Diaries Of Adam And Eve
A Review By George Fleeton.
Mark Twain, who had earlier created Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, published at the age of 70 his Extracts from Adam’s Diary and Eve’s Diary. These were just two of a whole series of interrelated texts which underlined his literary reputation as a great humorist.
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Emerald Illusions
LAST July, in an article in DownNews called the ‘Measurable Maturity of the QFT’, I commented on initiatives taken there to present live theatre, opera and ballet, plus re-issued examples of classic world cinema, as special events, which are now clearly paying dividends at the box-office.
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Siegfried, Rodelinda, Faust
Reviewed by George Fleeton. The sixth season of the Met: Live in HD series opened on October 15 last in twelve cinemas across Ireland, including the Omniplex Dundonald in east Belfast.
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Enjoy Lunchtime Readings Of Irish Writers In Ulster Hall
Literary Lunchtimes - a series of four lunchtime readings showcasing works by celebrated Irish writers - take place in The Ulster Hall’s Group Space from January to April. Literary Lunchtimes begins with Wireless Mystery Theatre’s Streets on Wednesday 25 January. Wireless Mystery Theatre combine literature, drama and music to portray how Ulster writers such as Cathal O`Byrne, Louis MacNeice and W.R. Rodgers mythologised, embroidered and romanticised the streets, roads and the psycho-geography of the places in which they grew up.
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Phil Coulter and Friends and Handel’s Messiah
Reviewed by George Fleeton What a juxtaposition! Phil Coulter in the Ulster Hall, still at what he does best on the edge of his 70th birthday and, two weeks later in the Waterfront Hall, G F Handel, a German who chose to live and work in London exactly 300 years ago, instrumental in making his music an inextricable cornerstone of 18th century English culture.
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Magic Flute To Play In Downpatrick
Opera Theatre Company, Ireland’s National Touring Opera Company in Association with Downe Independent Promotions are present Mozart’s magical masterpiece for one night only in Northern Ireland... in the newly refurbished Down Arts Centre. Described by the critics as putting the magic and mischief back into the masterpiece, Opera Theatre Company’s The Magic Flute has been delighting first time opera goers and seasoned fans alike, in sold out theatres throughout the country.
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Madama Butterfly, The Nutcracker, and Il Barbiere di Siviglia
By George Fleeton.In early November, Belfast’s Waterfront Hall hosted, on consecutive nights, Ellen Kent’s touring production of Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly, followed by the Moscow Ballet ‘La Classique’ touring production of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, a company I had not previously heard of.
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Great Irish Voices & Casta Diva
By George Fleeton
The pleasure given not only to the ear but to the soul by a supremely experienced female opera voice is sometimes difficult to put into words.
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Austen’s Women
By George Fleeton
Actress Rebecca Vaughan has been here before, in January last, with her one-woman show I, Elizabeth. That was a refined, neatly designed and costumed affair supporting a well written direct-to-audience performance, given without a break and nicely sustained for over an hour.
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60th Wexford Festival Opera - Expressions & Impressions – part 2
By George Fleeton
The Lunchtime Recitals at Wexford are always oversubscribed and for good reason too. But the age profile of the audiences for these events is ‘classic golden years’. Where are the young people?
I attended three of the nine scheduled recitals, enough to get the full flavour of these popular events, and to see another side of some of the Festival’s principal singers’ solo talents.
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60th Wexford Festival Opera - Expressions & Impressions – part 1
By George Fleeton
It is a principal chacteristic of the human voice, whether speaking of singing, that it instinctively and immediately exteriorises, expresses the emotions that are felt at that moment. It is always possible to dissimulate of course, to be less than honest, but we can spot that for it also shows in the voice.
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The Diary Of Anne Frank
By George Fleeton
Written in Dutch over two years (1942-44) ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ by 14 year old Anne Frank was first published in English in 1952 and has never been out of print.
It was in the care of her father who survived her by thirty-five years.
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Lyric Theatre Scoops UK-wide Cultural Diversity Award
The Lyric Thetre in Belfast is today celebrating after winning an award in London recently for its promotion of cultural diversity. The annual Theatre Awards UK are given by the Theatrical Management Association (TMA) to honour creative excellence and the outstanding work seen on stages throughout England, Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland.
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Anna Bolena & Il Trovatore – Reviews
By George Fleeton
Anna Bolena & Il Trovatore
Donizetti’s breakthrough opera Anna Bolena (Milan, 1830) opened the sixth season of the Met: Live in HD series on October 15th in twelve cinema screens across Ireland, including the Omniplex Dundonald in East Belfast.
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Rehearsals Begin For THE LITTLE PRINCE’s Reign At The Lyric Theatre
Rehearsals begin for THE LITTLE PRINCE’s reign at the Lyric Theatre for Nicholas Lloyd Webber and James D. Reid’s first full scale musical collaboration.
Rehearsals began today in the Lyric Theatre of a new musical adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince. Written by the younger generation of the Lloyd Webber dynasty, Nicholas, and James D. Reid, The Little Prince will be the Christmas treat on the Northern Bank Stage of the newly opened Lyric Theatre, Belfast from 1 December. It is being co-produced by the Lyric Theatre with Lamplighter Drama and is being directed by the Lyric’s Artistic Director, Richard Croxford.
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Macbeth: Review By George Fleeton
By George Fleeton
Macbeth
The most mature period of Shakespeare’s output is redolent with his greatest tragedies.
Hamlet, Othello and King Lear had each preceded Macbeth, which itself was first performed exactly four hundred years ago.
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West Side Story
By George Fleeton
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
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La Esmeralda, Live From The Bolshoi In Moscow
By George Fleeton
La Esmeralda, live from the Bolshoi in Moscow
Review by George Fleeton
AT last, in its third season of ballets live by satellite from the beautifully restored State Academic Bolshoi Theatre of Russia, in Moscow – and all wonderfully well organised for us by Classical Arts Ireland – we could participate in this season’s final performance of the Bolshoi’s production of La Esmeralda on October 09, in the Queen’s Film Theatre Belfast.
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