Randomly stumbled across that old video of him playing Chopin's posthumous C-sharp minor nocturne. Was incredibly moved. What an understated and noble way of playing. It's sad he's not (to my limited knowledge) more widely known.
Anticipates Lear's (very different) shattering cry of anguish after Cordelia's death, and draws on the linguistic dexterity of Hamlet.
From just after Bassanio chooses the right casket. Shakespeare really had a knack for using the simplest English to say so much.
What a beautiful pearly tone.
Macbeth is an excellent depiction of guilt but I find it somewhat too straightforward in approach for my liking. The relentless narrowness of the plot doesn't work quite as well as Othello, and the characters are less interesting. I'd swap it out for R2 in the big four. R2's plot is far more interestingly varied, the protagonist is more unique and complex, and there's a lot of proto-Hamletesque gentle humour at the sad decline of all things. It's just a more philosophically wide-ranging play to my ear.
When I first read this I expected, and wanted, Hamlet to develop the retort. saying something along the lines of 'Yes, it's common, but no less painful' (He does shortly add that his grief is deep, but he doesn't directly link it to the commonness of the feeling).
Now I've sort of grown used to the power of that idea as implied but unsaid here; it's just heavy subtext. Good writing.
Just curious. My guess is that Perahia is playing the primo part, but I'm not sure.
Just been browsing through some of his Julius Caesar and King Lear. Quite impressed, but I'm wondering what native speakers of French think.
(In general, who are the most well-regarded Shakespeare translators in French?)
For me, Richard III's macabre wooing of Anne would be dramatically perfect if he did so next to her husband's coffin, as opposed to her father-in-law's (acc I'm wondering if any productions made that change).
I feel like scholars have already noted this, but anyway- it's remarkable how almost every play I've read so far has a totally different style of writing. Shakespeare really wasn't a lazy writer; you hardly ever feel like he's copying and pasting vibes or styles. Just listing the ones which come to mind immediately:
-Lear- a universal, anguished cri de coeur, full of the raw forces of nature
-Richard II- bejewelled, stately
-Romeo and Juliet- similarly bejewelled, but still more youthfully naive, and buffeted with violence
-Midsummer Night's Dream- dreamy, charming pastorale
-Hamlet- a melancholic linguistic rhapsody
-Julius Caesar- lean, sour-faced writing, full of devious machinations.
-Othello- while finely written, lacking in linguistic fireworks, tightly focused on the dreadful verisimilitude of jealousy.
-Macbeth- compact, single-minded momentum, contrasting realistic psychology with Halloween vibes
-Much Ado- proto Jane Austenesque sparring, with a Shakespearean twist
-Richard III- exaggerated, Machiavellian evil- just a damned enjoyable caricature.