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  • Forever Plaid

    42nd Street Moon's Take On This Revue of Male Pop Quartets

    By: Victor Cordell - Apr 23rd, 2024

    This oft revived piece celebrates the smooth sound and close vocal harmonies of male ensembles in the pop era. An unsuccessful pop foursome returns from the dead for one last concert. Along with many songs for multiple voices, the guys sing solos to strut their stuff and pull off comic gags to add to the fun.

  • A Strange Loop

    ACT-SF's Outstanding Production Of A Daring Musical

    By: Victor Cordell - Apr 26th, 2024

    Usher is an overly introspective wannabe playwright who obsesses over his weight, color, and sexual orientation. In this audacious musical, the central character is surrounded by his thoughts. That is, the other characters are designated as Thought 1 through Thought 6. His internal conflicts and clashes with his parents prompt existential questions that may never be answered.

  • Anthony Roth Costanzo to Head Opera Philadelphia

    Cutting Edge Company Makes the Best Choice

    By: Susan Hall - Apr 25th, 2024

    The Opera Philadelphia Board of Directors has unanimously approved the appointment of Anthony Roth Costanzo as General Director and President effective June 1, 2024.  A grammy-winning countertenor and creative producer who ”exists to transform opera” Costanzo will shape the future of a company known as “a hotbed of operatic innovation”, overseeing fundraising and business strategies, audience development, community initiatives, and artistic planning.

  • Lempicka Bombs on Broadway

    An interesting Artist but Muddled Production

    By: Charles Giuliano - Apr 26th, 2024

    Lempicka was dud when it workshopped in 2018 at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Now. with a thud, it has landed on Broadway

  • Something Rotten

    Hillbarn Theatre's Riotous Romp

    By: Victor Cordell - Apr 28th, 2024

    In the 1590s, wannabe playwrights Nick and Nigel Bottom fail to compete with theatrical powerhouse Will Shakespeare. Nick consults with soothsayer Nostradamus who tells him that musicals are the coming thing. The outcome is the world's first musical "Omelet." Hmmm.

  • Madame Butterfly at Opera Philadelphia

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    By: Susan Hall - May 01st, 2024

    Opera Philadelphia is bringing us Madame Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini with a twist one imagines the composer would have liked. The title role of Cio-Cio-San is a two-hander, performed both by soprano Karen Chia-Ling Ho and a puppet created by Hua Hua Zhang.  In Anthony Minghella’s production, the puppet is Cio-Cio-San’s son. Now she is the exterior, public version of Butterfly, the one Lieutenant Pinkerton falls for and seduces and abandons. The director Ethan Heard and designer Yuki Izumihara came up with this notion.

  • Miro Quartet Performs at The Crypt

    Death of Classical Presents Home

    By: Susan Hall - May 07th, 2024

    The Miro Quartet performed works centered around the theme of “Home” for the Death of Classical series in New York.  In the crypt of a church in Harlem, reverberating in the acoustics of its stone arches, the Quartet sang. This program felt like a homecoming, immediate and warm. 

  • American Soldier Comes to PAC in New York

    Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang Unite in Splendid Opera

    By: Susan Hall - May 09th, 2024

    Huang Ruo’s opera, An American Soldier, opens May 12 at the new Perelman Performing Arts Center in lower Manhattan. This flexible theater is built for chamber opera, often the form new operas take.

  • Berkshire Music School Gala at  Ventfort Hall

    Flutist Brandon Patrick George To Perform

    By: BMS - May 13th, 2024

    On June 1, 2024 the Berkshire Music School, in partnership with Ventfort Hall, welcomes Brandon Patrick George, flute, for Berkshire Music School's Annual Gala to raise funds for BMS’ Community Engagement programs, including pay-what-you-wish group classes, need-based private lesson scholarships, and outreach assemblies and workshops in public schools.

  • Opera Lafayette’s Les Fetes de Thalie

    At Museo del Barrio

    By: Jessica Robinson - May 14th, 2024

    Under the baton of Christophe Rousset, Opera Lafayette’s production of the charmingly absurd Thalie was a triumph of artistry and innovation. With its contemporary flair, vibrant choreography, stellar performers, and infectious energy, the evening proved a delightful theatrical experience.

  • Bernadette Peters at Barrington Stage

    Tony Winner Perfoms One Nighter

    By: Barrington - May 17th, 2024

    As part of its 30th Anniversary Celebration, Barrington Stage Company announces Tony Award-winner Bernadette Peters in Concert on Tuesday, August 27 at 8:00 p.m. on the Boyd-Quinson Stage (30 Union Street). 

  • Matthew Polenzani Sings at Park Avenue Armory

    Ken Nodo Accompnies in intimate Officer's Room

    By: Susan Hall - May 28th, 2024

    To hear great singers in the Officer's Room of the Park Avenue Armory is a special privilege. One of the largest rooms in the Armory, today it feels like a salon room in an elegant apartment. A lost world is very present for the audience up close and personal. The cherished tenor, Matthew Polenzani, a regular star at the Metropolitan Opera, gives us his special textures and dynamics. 

  • Cabaret at Lesher Center for the Arts

    Hedonism and Persecution in Between the Wars Germany

    By: Victor Cordell - May 29th, 2024

    English nightclub entertainer Sally Bowles lives on the edges of society in the hedonism of Berlin during the Weimar years. Aspiring novelist Cliff Bradshaw alights from America and becomes both Sally's lover and her mark. This dark musical also explores the rise of Naziism through a young convert and the relationship of an elderly couple, one of whom is Jewish.

  • An American Soldier Perelman Performing Arts Center

    Huang Ruo and David Henry Wang Join Forces Again

    By: Susan Hall - May 30th, 2024

    An American Soldier, an opera by Huang Ruo and David Henry Wang, has been developing for a decade. The 2024 version is co-commissioned by PAC NYC and Boston Lyric Opera. Audiences at the new Perelman Performing Arts Center in lower Manhattan, are the beneficiaries of deep thought and a moving musical response to a seemingly uncomplicated subject: the wish of a young man, born in the USA of Asian immigrants, to be considered ‘American.’

  • The Magic Flute at San Francisco Opera

    A Fairy Tale About Love and Aspiration

    By: Victor Cordell - May 31st, 2024

    Tamino falls in love with Pamina's picture and runs the gauntlet in order to meet and marry her. His sidekick Papageno also seeks marriage but lacks the courage to confront the challenges before him. Both will succeed, but one more than the other.

  • ACT-CT Production of Kinky Boots

    Dragnet on Stage

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jun 02nd, 2024

    It is a high-energy, feel-good romp about people reconciling with their past and gaining acceptance for who they are.

  • Innocence

    San Francisco Opera's Chilling Modern Masterpiece

    By: Victor Cordell - Jun 09th, 2024

    Kaija Saariaho's last opera leaves a lasting impression. An ominous score supports a nerve-wracking story told in two time frames. A teenage shooter in Finland murders a number of his schoolmates. Ten years on, the perpetrator's brother is marrying a bride from Romania who does not know the connection. However, the waitress at the wedding reception dinner, whose daughter was a victim, recognizes the groom.

  • Being Alive - A Sondheim Celebration

    TheatreWorks Bright World Premiere Revue of Sondheim Love Songs

    By: Victor Cordell - Jun 11th, 2024

    Now that Stephen Sondheim has passed, this poignant collection of 36 songs is the first revue to span his whole life of works, from towering anthems to obscure hidden gems. Performed by an ensemble of six as a run through followed by a dress rehearsal with little additional commentary, it lets the songs do the telling.

  • Houston Symphony Performs Strauss' Salome

    A Perfect Concert Evening

    By: Susan Hall - Jun 13th, 2024

    The Houston Symphony presented Richard Strauss’ Salome. It was a perfect concert opera production.  All the singers were not only off book, but costumed to perfection (or unveiled when that critical moment arrives).

  • La Jolla Playhouse Ballad of Johnny and June

    Wonderful Cash Musical in San Diego

    By: Sharon Eubanks - Jun 17th, 2024

    The La Jolla Playhouse presents The Ballad of Johnny and June, a musical about the lives of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash.  Narrated by John Carter Cash, played by Von Hughes, the play begins with John trying to decide if he wants to get married.  John Carter Cash was the only child of the union of Johnny and June.  As John contemplates marriage, he tells the love story of his famous parents and their challenges with fame and addiction. 

  • Ulysses Quartet in Greenwood Cemetery

    Angel's Share Presents

    By: Susan Hall - Jun 25th, 2024

    The Ulysses Quartet performed Beethoven’s final work, his string quartet in A minor, in the Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. The classical spirit of Leonard Bernstein, who is buried here atop Battle Hill, pervades the place. Programs are various and always tasteful. The setting enhances the experience

  • Young Frankenstein at the Colonial

    Smash Hit Mel Brooks Musical in Pittsfield

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jun 30th, 2024

    Gerry McIntyre has directed and choreographed a flawless production of Mel Brooks’ hilarious musical Young Frankenstein. On opening night, it rocked a full house at the Colonial Theatre, where it will be fun, fun, fun until July 21.

  • Ted Rosenthal Trio returns to the Berkshires

    Jazz at Tangldewood Institute

    By: Ed Bride - Jul 02nd, 2024

    Our friends at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute in Lenox are coming out of the holiday weekend with continued fireworks: Ted Rosenthal Trio returns to the Berkshires to perform on July 9, at 7pm.

  • Evita

    Rags to Riches and Glamor Foreshortened

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 04th, 2024

    In this Weber/Rice musical biography, the charismatic and adulated Eva Peron insinuates herself into the highest level of Argentinian politics while in her 20s. Deploying an unusual device, an activist narrator, Che, skulks about and cynically undermines the public face of the title character.

  • Experiments in Opera at HERE

    New York Gets Four Delicious Mini Operas

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 05th, 2024

    The world premiere of “Five Ways to Die” took place at HERE in New York. If the subject is “death,” it must be an opera. Tosa jumps to her death from the walls of  Castel Sant'Angelo. Aida and her lover die in an airless Egyptian tomb. La Traviata coughs herself to death in a Parisian garret.  Defying death, all these women sing marvelously.  We suspend disbelief, carried away by gorgeous tunes. Experiments in Opera, a successful and innovative company, takes a different approach.

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