Nick Hammond
David Hockney 25
Unstoppable Hockney
One advantage of being possibly the most famous living artist and having reached the grand old age of 87 is that the world gets to see retrospectives of your work at regular intervals. So is it worth making the effort … Read More
Lumière: l’Aventure Continue
Big-Screen Pioneers
The release of Thierry Frémaux’s delightful new documentary, Lumière: l’Aventure Continue, has been timed in France to coincide with the 130th anniversary of the first-ever showing of a film on the big screen, Louis Lumière’s Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory … Read More
Théâtre de l’Athénée Louis Jouvet
An Italianate Parisian Jewel
While Parisian theatrical and musical life is dominated by its large theaters (Palais Garnier, Opéra Bastille, Comédie Française, Mogador, Odéon), so many smaller establishments deserve to be visited. One recent such “discovery” for me (I blush to admit) is the … Read More
Un Ours dans le Jura
The Bear Did It
It sometimes helps to go to a film with low expectations – on the rare occasions when they are turned upside down, the sense of sheer pleasure and relief afterward feels all the better. That was the case with the … Read More
L’Uomo Femina
Women Rule!
I have long been an admirer of conductor Vincent Dumestre and his excellent period-instrument orchestra Le Poème Harmonique. Specializing in French music from the 17th and early 18th centuries, it has staged and recorded seldom-performed music for over 25 years. … Read More
Vivre, Mourir, Renaître
Life After HIV
There is something poignant in director Gaël Morel’s decision to situate his new film, Vivre, Mourir, Renaître (To Live, To Die, To Live Again), between 1990 and ’95; it was during that period that Morel first made his name as … Read More
Les Chevaux de Géricault
Equine Obsession
I wonder how many of the equestrian teams at this summer’s Paris Olympics managed to take time off to see the exhibition of Théodore Géricault’s paintings, “Les Chevaux de Géricault” (“Géricault’s Horses”) at the Musée de la Vie Romantique (due … Read More
L’Impossible Retour
You Can't Go Home Again
One of the things I love most about France is the seriousness with which the publication of up-to-the minute novels is treated. The most significant time for new works to appear is known as the “rentrée littéraire,” when all the … Read More
Médée
Stage Magic
Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s opera Médée (called a tragédie lyrique) has had a lot of waiting to do. The dramatist Pierre Corneille wrote his version of the Medea myth as early as 1634, at the beginning of his career. Thomas Corneille, 19 … Read More
Madame de Sévigné
Dearest Daughter . . .
The fact that the life of Marie, Marquise de Sévigné (1626-96) has, as far as I am aware, never been made into a feature film before is perhaps unsurprising. How does one remain true to the reason her name is … Read More