Swans Vow

Oberammergau’s Broken Vow

Joy Clarkson | Plough | 23rd February 2023

Theologian reviews the famous Passionsspiele Oberammergau, which has been performed roughly once a decade since 1634. The script was finally rewritten in 1990, in part to expunge some "anti-Semitic overtones". It remains "astonishing", but its emotional impact has been blunted. "What seemed strange to me was an unwillingness to call the story what it is: deeply depressing" (2,849 words)

Black Swans

Harmony Holiday | Black Music And Black Muses | 27th February 2023

Lyrical tribute to Nina Simone, "who wanted to be a concert pianist and ended up a diva". "She was obstinate and delicate at the same time and seemed to always and never get her way. She mastered devastations’s hymn and devastation’s exuberance. Her singing ranged from limber flutter to the blunted acridity of moaning to gain momentum for a scream that never comes" (1,286 words)