Susan Hall
Bio:
Recent Articles:
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Tristan and Isolde at the Met Opera Front Page
A Musical and Visual Treat
By: - Mar 10th, 2026The Metropolitan Opera is proposing a future with its new production of Tristan und Isolde. Directed by the now middle-aged enfant terrible Yuval Sharon, it is in part a test of his suitability for the Der Ring des Nibelungen, which will follow in 2027. Do we imbibe Richard Wagner’s musical potion in Sharon’s new take on the mythic love story?
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Everyone Digs Bill Evans in Berlin Front Page
Grant Gee Wins Silver Bear for Best Direction
By: - Feb 25th, 2026Bill Evans, as portrayed in the film Everybody Digs Bill Evans—which earned Grant Gee a Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2026—is inarguably one of the greatest jazz pianists of the last century.
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The Recipe at La Jolla Playhouse Front Page
The Magic of Julia Child
By: - Feb 23rd, 2026Julia Child was one of America’s most beloved chefs. Her cooking show, The French Chef, which aired originally on PBS can still be found on the internet. Who was Juia Child? How did she come to be this exalted personality?
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Yo, or Love Is a Rebellious Bird, by Anna Fitch and Banker White Front Page
Silver Bear for Documentary In Berlin International Film Festuval
By: - Feb 21st, 2026Yo, the only documentary in the main competition at the Berlin International Film Festival, was shown at the Berlin Palast with "the team" in attendance. Banker White, co-director, cradled a puppet rendition of Yo, the film’s lead character, in his arms as he helped her “sign” a poster hung above the red carpet. Winner Silver Bear for Artistic Achievement
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The Red Hangar at the Berlin International Film Festival Front Page
A Resonating Story
By: - Feb 19th, 2026The Red Hangar (Hangar Rojo), a 2026 Chilean historical thriller directed by Juan Pablo Sallato, is being shown in the Perspectives section at the Berlin International Film Festival. Captain Jorge Silva is forced to choose between obeying orders and listening to his conscience. This uncomfortable dilemma does not arise only in the present moment of the 1973 Chilean military coup, but also from his past.
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A Prayer for the Dying Premieres in Berlin Film
Dara Van Dusen is a Superb Filmmaker
By: - Feb 19th, 2026A film adaptation of Stewart O’Nan’s novel A Prayer for the Dying premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. The director, Dara Van Dusen—Hollywood royalty as the granddaughter of Baby Doll’s Carroll Baker—is a creature of the world, countering America’s current image of backsliding into the past. Van Dusen studied film in Poland and now lives in Norway.
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Weinberg's Passenger at Opera Frankfurt Front Page
We Must Not Forget
By: - Feb 10th, 2026Opera Frankfurt gives a commanding and deeply engaging performance of The Passenger by Mieczysaw Weinberg, with a libretto by Alexander Medvedev. Dmitri Shostakovich, a close friend of the composer, read Zofia Posmysz’s novel and immediately saw its potential as an opera. Weinberg agreed and went on to write what he considered the best of his seven operas. The Soviet government suppressed it
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Love is Destiny at Frankfurt Opera Front Page
R.R.Schlater Directs Agostino Steffani
By: - Feb 08th, 2026Opera Frankfurt is mounting Amor Vien dal Destino (Love Is Destiny) by the late 17th-century composer Agostino Steffani. An Italian who masterfully blended bel canto lyricism with the German counterpoint tradition, Steffani was a major influence on Handel, who frequently glommed onto his work, sometimes quoting it directly.
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Heartbeat Opera Gives Us Manon Front Page
Opera Lives in New York
By: - Feb 02nd, 2026Heartbeat Opera is offering a striking new Manon, cut and shaped into a taut hundred minutes, restoring much of the original wit and allowing it to sharpen—rather than soften—the opera’s tragic ending. This one-act chamber adaptation features a new English translation by Jacob Ashworth and Rory Pelsue. Directed by Pelsue with meticulous attention to detail and an unerring sense of pace. Conducted by the inimitable Dan Schlosberg, the production is terrific from start to finish
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Woodie King, Jr. of New Federal Theatre Front Page
King's Death Announced
By: - Jan 31st, 2026Woodie King, Jr., founder of New Federal Theatre and a prolific producer and director who dedicated more than five decades to providing opportunities for minorities and women in the performing arts, died January 29 at Weill Cornell Medical Center of complications from emergency heart surgery. He was 88.
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The Cleveland Orchestra Delivers Verdi's Requiem Front Page
Welser-Most Conducts at Carnegie Hall
By: - Jan 21st, 2026Franz Welser-Möst arrived at Carnegie Hall on January 20 with the Cleveland Orchestra and Verdi’s Requiem. Asmik Grigorian, well known for her dramatic operatic singing, took the soprano solo role. She was joined by Deniz Uzun (mezzo-soprano), Joshua Guerrero (tenor), and Tareq Nazmi (bass), all of whom added vocal pleasures. Lisa Wong directed the chorus.
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Tiergarten, a Cabaret at Prototype Front Page
Andrew Ousley Gives Decadent and Provocative Evening
By: - Jan 19th, 2026The Prototype Festival, founded by Beth Morrison and the producers of HERE twenty years ago, has been at the forefront of new opera since its inception. This season, a cabaret evening created by another new-performance impresario, Andrew Ousley, took a special place in Prototype.
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Met Opera Chamber Ensemble at Weill Hall Front Page
Carnegie Hosts Erin Morley and Lawrence Brownlee
By: - Jan 13th, 2026A chamber ensemble, comprised of members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, performed a Brahms Trio and accompanied premiere singers in Schubert Lieder and a Donizetti duet. The intimate Weill Concert Hall, seating around 250 people, gave the audience a taste of the individual talents that come together in the grand opera house and rarely get a chance to display their solo skills. James Levine cooked up this idea, and it makes for an exciting and inviting evening.
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One Battle After Another, Best Picture Front Page
Paul Thomas Anderson's Take on Pynchon's Vineland
By: - Jan 05th, 2026One Battle After Another comes out of the starting gate in first place, a position it deserves to keep. It has just won the Critics’ Choice Best Picture Award, along with Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
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Timothee Chalamet as Marty Supreme Front Page
Josh Safdie's Film Enthralls and Sucks
By: - Dec 19th, 2025Marty Supreme starring Timothee Chalamet goes into wide release on Christmas Day. It is the Safdie Brothers “Uncut Gems" redux. Shot by the fabulous Darius Khondji in zoom close up, with the camera moving with the figures and placing us right beside characters we may not want to know so well, we are gripped for two and a half hours.
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Ginny Williams, Art Whisperer Front Page
A Moving Film
By: - Dec 10th, 2025Director Flemming Fynsk's moving film The Art Whisperer is in contention for awards this year. Its subject, Ginny Williams, was an art collector and gallery owner of remarkable instinct and vision.
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Film at Lincoln Center Presents Yoshimuro Front Page
Brilliant and Underappreciated Filmmaker
By: - Nov 28th, 2025Film at Lincoln Center will present “Kozaburo Yoshimura: Tides of Emotion,” a retrospective of 13 films by one of the accomplished yet underappreciated figures of the golden age of Japanese cinema. Running from December 5 through December 11, 2025, the festival is presented in partnership with the Japan Foundation.
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Endgame at the Irish Arts Center Front Page
Druid Mounts a Magnificnet Production
By: - Nov 03rd, 2025The Druid theater is mounting Samuel Beckett’s Endgame at the Irish Arts Center in New York. The set is striking. It is curved like the inside of the two garbage cans sitting on the stage, covered by cloth at the start. Inside tthe actual cans are two stumps–a happily married couple, Negg and Nell, played here by Bosco Hogan and Marie Mullen (one of the founders of Druid).
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Krapp's Last Tape at NYU Front Page
Stephen Rea Stars in the Skirball Production
By: - Oct 19th, 2025Krapp’s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett is playing at NYU’s Skirball Theater, with the great Stephen Rea in the title role. Years ago, Rea rehearsed this play with Samuel Beckett himself and recorded Krapp’s early memories. It is those old recordings we now hear in this production—Rea, in the present, listening to the voice of his younger self.
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Saariaho's Passion in New York Front Page
Mannes Opera Presents La Passion de Simone
By: - Oct 14th, 2025Mannes, the most interesting and daring music school in New York, presented Kaija Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone at the Nagelberg Theater, just steps from its usual home in the Tishman Auditorium. At the Tishman, works were often presented catwalk-style, the action taking place on a narrow strip in front of the orchestra. At the Nagelberg, director Emma Griffin finally had space to mount the first fully staged chamber version of Saariaho’s oratorio.
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Jeremy Denk at the Park Avenue Armory Front Page
Six Partita Characters in Search of Interpretation
By: - Oct 09th, 2025Jeremy Denk performs the six Bach partitas for keyboard in the Officer’s Board Room of the Park Avenue Armory. We all come back to Bach. Jeremy Denk never left him. And Denk's insights have expanded over the years. The joy, the sense of humor and the play have always been there. Denk makes Bach clear and present.
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Park Avenue Armory Hosts 11,000 Strings Front Page
Composer G.F. Haas Imagines Space
By: - Oct 05th, 2025Park Avenue Armory is hosting 11,000 Strings, a trsnsportting soundscaoe creaated by composer G. F. Haas. The work is a play on sounds created by the space between two notes.
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All the Men Who've Frightened Me Front Page
La Jolla Playhouse Presents
By: - Oct 03rd, 2025The presentation of All the Men Who’ve Frightened Me comes to the La Jolla Playhouse via it’s DNA New Work Series. The play follows young married couple Ty (Hennesey Winkler) and Nora (Kineta Kunutu) as they move into Ty’s childhood home.
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Bates, Szymanowski, Lutoslawski at NY Phil Front Page
David Robertson Conducts
By: - Sep 29th, 2025David Robertson and the New York Philharmonic performed a program that displayed the orchestra in all its glory.
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Pene Pate at the Park Avenue Armory Front Page
Tenor of the Century Performs
By: - Sep 28th, 2025Tenor Pene Pate gave his first concert in New York at the Park Aveneue Armory. He has a superb voice, impeccable, warm deilvery and a special generosity, charcteeristic of his Samoan heritage.
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