The history of music is littered with the detritus of Hollywood’s vanity. Many an A-list actor has convinced themselves they’ve got the goods to make it as a musician, be that Eddie Murphy, Bruce Willis, or Robert Downey Jr. The results are seldom good. To this end, you might have reason to hoist an eyebrow when you spot Sir Anthony Hopkins is releasing an album this week. But how wrong you’d be.
Life is a Dream is the second record from the Oscar-winning star of The Silence of the Lambs and The Father. (His previous album, Composer, was released on CD in 2012, through Classic FM.) Those who might be bewildered by the mental image of the 88-year-old Welshman strutting a stage like Mick Jagger singing “Sympathy for the Devil” need not worry: these are classical compositions, composed by Hopkins over the course of his life and performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra with Grammy Award-winning conductor Gustavo Dudamel.
