Monthly Archives: November 2008
Amália
The word kitsch springs irresistibly to mind when this smash hit musical about the life and work of the late, great fado diva Amália Rodrigues is mentioned. It offers a selection of the most famous songs of this exponent of Lisbon’s trademark soulful music, many of them written by Portugal’s leading poets and composers. Two actress-singers play Amália – one the rising star and the other the ageing icon. The show, put on in a pleasingly seedy theatre tucked round the back of the Avenida da Liberdade downtown, is packed out every night. Amália died last October, prompting three days of national mourning, but this show is just one sign that she is lives on in the hearts of Lisboetas. In Portugese.
Dates, Events, People: Pages of History in Gifts
Stalin and the other Soviet leaders were very popular. Whenever any leader popped round they would always bring a present. An enthralling exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary History displays some of the bizarre and grovelling gifts that countries and leaders bestowed on the most powerful men in the world. Displays include a telephone in the shape of a globe with a hammer-and-sickle receiver sent by Polish workers and a pipe with a mini Stalin drawn on it.
Vicar Street
As a music venue, Vicar Street is well known, but don’t let a lack of tickets to the next big gig stop you from popping in for a drink. The gorgeously designed main bar is big and bright, with windows on the world it seems – the most coveted seating areas are somewhere between the floor-to-ceiling windows and beside the huge roaring fire. As a lunch venue, the bar menu is substantial enough, with a moderately good wine list. Expect the usual leek and potato soup and ciabatta sandwiches. And best of all, as most people only think of going to Vicar Street for a pint before the gig starts, it’s empty most of the time.
Karl Bryullov
The vast canvas of ‘The Last Day of Pompeii’ goes on show in Moscow for the first time in an exhibition featuring 200 of Karl Bryullov’s paintings and drawings. Bryullov, who is known as Great Karl by Russian schoochildren, has always been valued as a master. His most famous painting of Pompeii residents fleeing the fire-spewing volcano is usually housed in St Petersburg’s Russian museum. Bryullov’s other works are more serene – portraits of aristocrats, sketches, drawings and doodles that include more than a little of the erotic.
Brussels by Light
If any city could be described as a chameleon, it would be Brussels. Alternating between a big village, with a real sense of community, and a bureaucratic wasteland, inhabited more by office-blocks than people, it draws a curiously ambivalent response from visitors and residents alike. This exhibition captures that juxtaposition of ugliness and beauty, using the works of 11 photo-artists, including such celebrated snappers as Dirk Braeckman and Marin Kasimir. Organised as part of the events for Brussels’ stint as a European City of Culture.
Art of Accelerated Time
A comprehensive showcase of Czech art from the 1960s, this collection poses the poignant question ‘What if?’. More than a few people believed that the Prague Spring of 1968 would finally give official free reign to artists already emboldened by Dubcek’s ‘Socialism with a Human Face’. That lost chance puts these provocative, experimental and whimsical images by the likes of Jiri Kolar into a bittersweet perspective.
John Prine + Iris De Ment
American legend John Prine plays the Olympia for one night only, supported by the smooth-voiced Irish De Ment. The 1970s singer-songwriter has braved throat cancer and an inescapable ‘new Dylan’ tag to record an album of duets with the likes of Dolores Keane, Emmylou Harris and De Ment. Prine has an uncanny knack for touching on universal truths via songs populated with everyday, small-town characters and Irish fans will be thrilled with chance to catch the main man himself.
