Page 91 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

4 October – 26 January 2025 (whitworth.manchester.ac.uk)

Visual arts

Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: Florence, C.1504

Royal Academy, London

The scene is set 520 years ago – three of the greatest artists of their respective
generations crossed paths in Florence. The city’s artists had assembled to decide the
best site for Michelangelo’s sculpture of David, which was then nearly finished.
Leonardo was in his early 50s and Michelangelo in his late 20s – their mutual dislike

was fuelled by their competition for patrons and commissions, but they were also
fascinated by one another. Both were commissioned to create murals for the Palazzo
Vecchio, and their studies will be shown here together again for the first time.
Drinking it all in was Raphael, then a youth of 21. The Ninja Turtle jokes? They just
write themselves. HJ

9 November – 16 February 2025 (royalacademy.org.uk)

Opera

Ring Cycle

Regent’s Opera, Freemason’s Hall, London

Ring Cycles don’t come cheap or often. Fearless fringe company Regent’s Opera may
have been building up to this one for over a decade, but with tickets from £45 – for

four nights, four operas and around 15 hours of music – you’ll never get a better
bargain. Or a better introduction to Wagner. This ambitious company and their music
director Ben Woodward really get the human cut-and-thrust of this music, and serve it
hot and at close-quarters in the impressive interior of the Freemason’s Hall. Try it here
first, then decide if you want to splash out to see Barrie Kosky’s cycle (just getting
started) at the Royal Opera. AC

10 Nov – 1 Dec (regentsopera.com)

Film

Gladiator 2

There’s not a ton of information out there about this unexpected sequel to the 2000 hit
film starring Russell Crowe, but we know this: it stars Paul Mescal as Lucius, the
nephew to Joaquin Phoenix’s dastardly Roman emperor, who is saved as a child by
Crowe’s gladiator Maximus. Now a grown man, he returns to the place of his birth.