1 Love and war are the staples, not just of all drama, but of pretty much how the world functions. And, as Shakespeare, the Greeks and the multiple myth-makers behind the Bible were smart enough to spot, possibly from experience, the personal and the political always go hand in dagger-wielding hand. Two very different Edinburgh International Festival shows recognise this just as clearly, even as they don't exactly mess with the template, but subvert it enough to bring their epic and all too familiar stories bang up to date. While just appointed director of Zurich Opera House Andreas Homoki's production of David et Jonathas (David and Jonathan) sets Mark-Antoine Charpentier's 1688 Old Testament opera with a libretto by Francois Bretoneau in its original landscape on the eve of war between the Israelites and Phillistines, Polish wunderkind Grzegorz Jarzyna's 2008: Macbeth is an explicitly post-modern political parable. Jarzyna was last in Edinburgh with hi
An archive of arts writing by Neil Cooper. Effete No Obstacle.