Music
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Joshua Roman and Conor Hanick at The Crypt
Arvo Part and Alfred Schnittke Featured
By: - Sep 19th, 2019Joshua Roman on cello and Conor Hanick at the piano performed a wild, raucous Alfred Schnittke Sonata bracketed by two transcendental works by Arvo Pärt. Andrew Ousley speaking at the outset as we waited for the artists to descend into the arched naves, suggested that we refrain from applauding at the end of each work. Instead we might absorb the afterglow of the music and let it seep further in. No one was tempted to break the silence with an inadvertent clap.
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Opera Philadelphia Presents Denis and Katya
Philip Venables and Ted Huffman Update Romeo and Juliet
By: - Sep 23rd, 2019Opera Philadelphia presents Denis and Katya, the world premiere of a new opera by Philip Venables and Ted Huffman. Keenia Ravvinia is credited both with creative contributions and translation of the events surrounding the dual death of two fifteen year old Russians. The teens had holed up in a cabin where weapons were stored and used them to attack the police. No one really knows what happened, but it was an event that was covered by the young couple in smart phone videos and periscope posts and widely picked up by the media.
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Opera Philadelphia's Love for Three Oranges
Prokovief's American Opera Mounted Like Lollipops
By: - Sep 24th, 2019Apparently the audience for the Sunday performance of Love for Three Oranges at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia was only the second best audience so far. The best, 1,300 school children who had earlier found this work irresistible. It is.
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Joseph Keckler to Die for at Opera Philadelphia
Making the Case for Death
By: - Sep 24th, 2019Joseph Keckler takes on the subject of singing in opera with a unique flare for the dramatic, for humor and deep delve. He is a masterful monologuist. In Let Me Die, he goes to the center of the operatic volcano, the death song. Here divas have been challenged since Monteverdi to blast out their pain in dying with vocal chords wide open and lungs at full mast. Yet they are fading away. Neither singer nor composer has ever been much disturbed by the odd idea that someone is going to a breathless state with lungs belting
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Liszt Performed in the Catacombs
Jenny Lin and Adam Tendler, a Remaarkable Double Team
By: - Sep 27th, 2019Pianists Jenny Lin and Adam Tendler took on one of Franz Liszt’s early and most demanding compositions, alternating roles as performance artists and page turners. Yamaha had delivered a grand piano which just fit between the arched stone walls of the Catacombs at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. The lid of the piano was completely removed, allowing a bright, distinctive tone to emerge, even when so many notes cascaded that it might have been difficult to distinguish one from another. Erotic and religious ecstasy erupted.
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New York Philharmonic Pairs Schoenberg and Bartok
From Sweden Come Rich New Takes
By: - Sep 29th, 2019The New York Philharmonic became an opera orchestra for Schoenberg’s Erwartung and Bela Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle. A Swedish cast, including the incomparable Nine Stemme and directed by Bengt Gomer, provided new twists to the tales, emphasizing the real or imagined murder of an errant lover and possible survival of an eighth wife of Bluebeard. His beard is not blue, and attractions go beyond a castle and riches.
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Clara Schuman 200 Years Young
Works by Women Composers Featured at National Sawdust
By: - Sep 29th, 2019Constellation by Emma O'Halloran was inspired by images of hands in the first cave drawings. Turns out that most of these were women's hands, and they looked like constellations, which was O'Halloran's jumping off point. Naomi Louisa O'Connell drew their pictures in riveting song.
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Oedipus an Opera by Elli Papapakonstantinou
Classic Myth Brought to Life at BAM
By: - Oct 01st, 2019Elli Papapakonstantinou has created a masterful and absorbing re-telling of the Oedipus story at the Fisher Theater, BAM. Elements of the story we know are central to the production. The sense Papapakonstantinou conveys is the randomness of life. The gruesome drama of the events we hear sung and see danced are horrific. Presented with strong videos, smoke and mirrors, with live video-ing of the principal characters, the piece is larger than life.
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Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky
California's Livermore Valley Opera
By: - Oct 01st, 2019Eugene Onegin represents all that can be despicable in the idle rich. Baritone Morgan Smith captures the arrogant, unempathetic nature of the character to the extent that one wonders why Tatiana would be so taken by him.
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Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci
Unique Setting for Boston Lyric Opera Production
By: - Oct 04th, 2019Boston Lyric Opera’s season opener Ruggero Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci” brings inventive staging and design to their production. It promotes a carnival-like atmosphere that invigorates the storyline and engages the audience.
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Laurie Anderson at the Kaplan Penthouse
The Sound of Music and the Music of Language Mix
By: - Oct 06th, 2019Laurie Anderson curated the New York Philharmonic NightCap at the Stanley Kaplan Penthouse on October 5. This nightclub event followed a performance of Hector Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique in David Geffen Hall. The host, Nadia Sirota, pointed out that connection between Berlioz’ and Anderson’s work. Both use narrative but that by Anderson and her friends tests the boundaries of sound.
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Mark Twain’s River of Song
At TheatreWorks Silicon Valley
By: - Oct 08th, 2019LeKae, a black woman, plays the white boy Huck, and the viewer happily suspends disbelief, as she thoroughly convinces playing the role of the youth as he breaks away from the constraints of convention. They reproduce the escape from the fictitious town of St. Petersburg, Missouri, rafting down the Mississippi, wide-eyed and reveling in the beauty of the world and of freedom.
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Tanglewood Learning Institute
Programming October 2019 Through June 2020.
By: - Oct 09th, 2019The Boston Symphony Orchestra announces Tanglewood’s first-ever fall/winter/spring schedule of performances and activities to take place on the grounds of the famed music festival, October 2019 through June 2020.
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Jason Hardink at National Sawdust
Ives' Concord Sonata and World Premiere Jason Eckhardt
By: - Oct 10th, 2019Jason Hardink will perform at National Sawdust in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on October 20. This is an unusual concert celebrating the centennial anniversary of the premiere of Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata.
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Marriage of Figaro
At San Francisco Opera
By: - Oct 13th, 2019San Francisco Opera’s new production of Marriage of Figaro retains the time frame of the original (late 18th century) but moves the action from Spain to post-Revolutionary America. The shift in venue carries no significance for this opera.
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Zorn, Hannigan, Jack Quartet, and Sae Hashimoto
Veterans Room at the Park Avenue Armory
By: - Oct 16th, 2019Super diva Barbara Hannigan and the Jack Quartet with Sae Hashimoto on vibraphone performed the music of John Zorn in the Veterans Room of the Park Avenue Armory. Hannigan had selected this room because she wanted the audience to have an intimate experience. We heard her daring and beautiful take on Zorn’s Jumalattaret, which was even more bold and beautiful than its US premiere in Ojai last June.
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New England Conservatory
50th Anniversary of Jazz Department
By: - Oct 21st, 2019In recognition and celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Jazz Studies department and the Jazz Studies program, New England Conservatory is hosting Jazz50, a year-long series of concerts and events.
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The Jack Quartet at a Crypt Session
John Luther Adams Communes
By: - Oct 21st, 2019In The Crypt, composer and performing artists collaborate. Selections of a talented impresario invite artists and audience to enter special moments together. Sounds reverberate from stone as candles cast warm light. Moments nourish the soul to spread and re-capture the precious environment for which composer John Luther Adams has always fought. Adams now focuses on the power of music to transform. In the bows and string of the Jack Quartet, it does.
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Verdi's Nabucco
Produced by West Bay Opera
By: - Oct 22nd, 2019Nabucco evidences the Verdi sound and style associated with the masterpieces of his rich middle period. The music is melodious throughout, with demanding arias and complex ensembles, though none are among his more memorable. However, the overture, which includes many of the opera’s themes, captivates and is often performed on its own in concert halls.
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Billy Elliot at Goodspeed
Boys of Ballet
By: - Oct 26th, 2019Some flaws exist in this production of Billy Elliot directed by Gabriel Barre and choreographed by Marc Kimelman. Barre has changed a few things from the original show and overall they work,
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Boston Jazz Entrepreneur Fred Taylor at 90
What and Quit Show Biz!
By: - Oct 27th, 2019Jazz entrepreneur Fred Taylor has passed at 90. He never retired producing concerts and programming for the Cabot Theatre in Beverly. Not surprisingly his yet to be published autobiography, a collaboration with Richard Vacca, is titled What and Quit Show Business. Taylor booked Boston's Jazz Workshop/ Paul’s Mall from 1963 to 1978. From 1991 to 2017 he booked Scullers Jazz Club and produced the Tanglewood Jazz Festival from 2001 to 2007.
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Boston Country Singers Annie Brobst & Samantha Rae
Country Women for Women’s Cancer Benefit at Hard Rock Cafe
By: - Oct 28th, 2019Boston’s country singers Annie Brobst & Samantha Rae are behind the Country Women for Women’s Cancer Benefit at Hard Rock Café. The sold out event will occur on Saturday, November 2 at 8PM. The fundraiser will help the Susan F. Smith Center Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
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The Musician John Hiatt
A Nashville Artist
By: - Oct 29th, 2019I was invited to a 'pop-up' John Hiatt show the Noho section of Manhattan. It was a solo rooftop performance.
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Wrong Man Off Broadway Musical
By 2015 Pop Songwriter of the Year Ross Golan
By: - Nov 06th, 2019Several years ago, 2015 Pop Songwriter of the Year Ross Golan, who has written for Ariana Grande, Maroon 5, Michael Bublé, and many more, developed a concept album called The Wrong Man. The project morphed into a one-man theatrical show that won Ovation Awards in Los Angeles. Now, a compelling, fully-formed, dark, rock opera appears Off Broadway.
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Pacini's Mary Tudor at Odyssey Opera
First-Rate Mounting of an Under-appreciated Gem
By: - Nov 06th, 2019Queen Mary I is infatuated with the Scottish adventurer Fenimoore, who is in love with Clothilde, who in turn loves Ernesto. Romance and political intrigue are treacherous bedfellows in this opera based on Victor Hugo’s play about Mary Tudor. A remarkable and largely forgotten opera, its expressive vocal characterization paints an unforgettable portrait of a Queen and the repercussions of her indulgence in an unwise love. Presented as a fully-staged production in Italian with English subtitles. Libretto by Leopoldo Tarantini.
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