Franco Milazzo - Page 16

Wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the name of American metal band Goatwhore, Stephin Merritt and his Magnetic Fields bandmates arrived in London last weekend to celebrate the 25th anniversary of genre-blending 69 Love Songs.

Presented as a side-by-side narrative by the Shenzen Opera and Dance company, Wing Chun tells the story of kung fu grandmaster and Bruce Lee mentor Yip Man as well as that of a film crew making a movie about his life.

Who wouldn’t want to spend a night with Janis Joplin? Despite barely hitting the charts on this side of the pond, the American singer still symbolises the best (and worst) of the Sixties over fifty years before she joined the 27 Club. Not that you would know from this show.

As shown in Amber Jarman-Crainey’s Bound (stylised as B O U N D), talking to the dead is not solely the preserve of spiritualists and mediums. Her immersive meditation on grief manifests in the form of nine storylines where the living pour their hearts to those who have passed.

It’s not every show that hands out party poppers as you go in. Aimed at young audiences, Mr Punch At The Opera whips together the iconic hand-puppets with a musical amuse-bouche.

Patrick Barlow’s parody The 39 Steps creaks and groans in places but still has plenty of laughs. Wrapped around the central character of Richard Hannay, the story unfurls as we see him accused of murder, run from the police and then defeat a foreign cabal of spies. 

Opera Holland Park close out another acclaimed season with a rollicking Yeomen Of The Guard.

There’s a singular simplicity in Madama Butterfly that draws in audiences year after year, decade by decade like moths to a flame: a man loves and leaves a woman; she gives up everything for him. With a staging that mirrors that bare but powerful concept, Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s 2002 production returns again to Covent Garden with more than a patina of authenticity.

Feeling like the wildest circus party in town, Fuerza Bruta (Spanish for “brute force”) return to the Roundhouse with their new show Aven.

It would be difficult to describe Adam Perchard as some shy, self-effacing wallflower. They follow up Bunburying (The Importance of Being Dr Adam Perchard) with another autobiographical show, this time with composer Richard Thomas, co-creator of Jerry Springer: The Opera.

And here we go again: the London Clown Festival returns for another run of bizarre, brilliant and occasionally bonkers shows until 26 July.

Has opera found its own Ivo van Hove? Jan Philipp Gloger’s radical production of Così fan tutte continues until 10 July.

Fronted by some fresh faces, Jonathan Kent’s cinematic take on the Puccini masterwork Tosca returns for its seventeenth run at Covent Garden. 

Deadweight Theatre’s The Manikins: A Work In Progress is many things. It is interactive. It is intimate. It is thought-provoking. And, despite the misleading title, it has a polished concept that leaves its audience pondering long after the show ends.

With a cry of “honey I’m home!”, international musical theatre icon Lea Salonga returns to the stage that launched her career over three decades ago.

Zhang Quan’s Acrobatic Swan Lake is so much more than its title suggests. The show originated in China in 2004 and, in the intervening decades, has travelled the world and was updated in 2019 under director Yan Hongxia. As choreographer and artistic director, Quan has created a work which seamlessly blends the elegance and poetry of ballet with the ability of circus to defy physics and the limits of the human body.

With its live singers, superb clowning and disappointing vaudeville acts, The Entertainers’ Cirque: The Greatest Show is bringing its dazzling show around the country.

Even if the press night weather for this open air production suggested otherwise, this latest take on The Barber Of Seville is the perfect summer opera with its fluffy blend of humour and romance and some of the art form’s best known arias.

Juggling not only apples but comedy, dance and socio-sexual commentary, the troupe co-founded by Sean Gandini and Kati Ylä-Hokkala in 1992 bring back their signature production to London.

In a sudden lurch away from their epic 2022 creation The Burnt City, immersive specialists Punchdrunk’s next effort is a far more cosy affair. Small barefoot groups walk their way through the Nineties fairytale world of Viola’s Room with the story relayed over headphones by Helena Bonham Carte