Susan Hall
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Recent Articles:
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On Site Opera at Museum at Eldridge Street Front Page
Ricky Ian Gordon's Morning Star
By: - Mar 22nd, 2018The Triangle Fire of 1911, in which more lives were lost than in any other disaster before 9/11, flames in the background of Ricky Ian Gordon and William Hoffman’s opera Morning Star.
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Beth Morrison and National Sawdust Front Page
Ten New Composers and Ten New Works
By: - Mar 20th, 2018Beth Morrison and National Sawdust host new composers and new works in a competition for the chance to expand a work next year. The Next Generation is here.
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Education by Brian Dykstra Front Page
At 59E59 Theaters
By: - Mar 18th, 2018Education is a bold title for a play, but this arresting new play by Brian Dykstra deserves the title. Directed with precise attention to detail and an ability to turn the emotional context on a dime, Margarett Perry captures 21st century public school high school life.
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Alarm Will Sound at Carnegie Hall Front Page
A Portrait of György Ligeti
By: - Mar 17th, 2018Alan Pierson of Alarm Will Sound invites us to a salon he conducts with Nadia Sirota. Tonight’s subject would be György Ligeti, the Hungarian composer who many people heard for the first time as they watched Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
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Cosi Fan Tutti at the Metropolitan Opera Front Page
Coney Island is the Setting
By: - Mar 16th, 2018How do you solve the problem of presenting an opera that forces men and women into the stereotypes of the 18th century to a 21st century audience? If you're director Phelim McDermott, whose dazzling new Cosí fan tutte arrived at the Metropolitan Opera on Thursday night, you roll the score in glue, dip it in glitter, and hope for the best.
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The Fall at St. Ann's Warehouse Front Page
Baxter Theatre Takes Down Cecil B. Rhodes
By: - Mar 15th, 2018Al Sharpton wanted to take down the Jefferson Memorial and hasn't yet succeeded. The US military helped Iraquis topple Saddam Hussein's statue. In an engaging and lively student occupation on the campus of the University of Cape Town, seven members of the Baxter Theatre troop take down Cecil B. Rhodes in "The Fall" at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn.
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Nézet-Séguin at Carnegie Hall Front Page
Toast of Two Cities
By: - Mar 14th, 2018There is no question that the Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin is the big man on the New York classical music scene at the moment. The music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra was in town with his troops on Tuesday night, for his first Carnegie Hall appearance since being appointed the music director of the Metropolitan Opera.
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Met Opera Fires James Levine Front Page
Who Knew About Levine's Escapades and When
By: - Mar 12th, 2018The Verdi Requiem was James Levine's final performance at the Metropolitan Opera.
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Pierre Aimard at Carnegie Hall Front Page
A Slew of Interesting Piano Works
By: - Mar 10th, 2018There is no question that the French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard is among the most innovative and forward thinking masters of the keyboard working today. Carnegie Hall was the stage for a recent performance.
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New York Philharmonic Plays Brahms and Prokoviev Front Page
Jaap Van Sweden Offers Pavorites
By: - Mar 06th, 2018The New York Philharmonic just went on tour. However, before the orchestra caught a Saturday flight to Japan last week, they played four evening concerts under its new music director Jaap van Zweden. The program, heard Friday night, eschewed the usual tripartite musical evening for a pairing of heavyweight favorites: the D minor Piano Concerto by Johannes Brahms, and the Fifth Symphony of Serge Prokofiev.
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Christine Goerke Unleashes Elektra Front Page
Hezet-Seguin Leads the Metropolitan Opera Production
By: - Mar 03rd, 2018There comes a time in the career of an opera singer when they are the artist of the moment. For Christine Goerke, the American dramatic soprano who sang the title role of Elektra at the Metropolitan Opera, that time is now. Goerke has sung the role on other stages to great acclaim, both here and elsewhere. However Thursday night was a watershed: the dramatic soprano's long-awaited return to singing major Strauss roles on America's largest operatic stage.
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Uchida at Carnegie Hall Music
Sheer Perfection at the Piano
By: - Mar 02nd, 2018Is it possible for an artist to be above criticism? That question is necessitated by this week's schedule st Carnegie Hall, which features not one but two recitals of Schubert piano sonatas by the astounding Mitsuko Uchida. On the concert hall as well as on disc, Uchida offers a highly personal approach to these works. At the first of these concerts on Monday night, she offered three of the sonatas.
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Dudamel Conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Front Page
Carnegie Hall Hosts
By: - Feb 26th, 2018Sunday's matinee concert, the third of three this weekend at Carnegie Hall, the great Vienna Philharmonic eschewed the Mozart and Beethoven for a refreshing focus elsewhere. For this concert, the orchestra and current guest conductor Gustavo Dudamel agreed to play symphonies by Charles Ives and Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, whose only common thread was the unconventional and innovative nature of their work.
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Live Streaming a Chamber Music Master Class Front Page
Associated Chamber Music Players Spearheads the Drive
By: - Feb 26th, 2018The Associated Chamber Music Players (ACMP) live streamed a master class from the Opera Center in New York. Aspiring chamber music performers across the globe were invited to watch, learn and participate by asking questions.
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Dudamel Leads Vienna at Carnegie Front Page
Circumstance Without Pomp
By: - Feb 24th, 2018The Vienna Orchestra's horns and low brass displayed their customary control in the opening phrases before the strings took the lyric theme. They were answered by the horns, which, true to their conservative manifesto, still play the narrow-bore instruments in F with the antique pumpenvalve system, invented (like the Vienna Philharmonic itself) in the 1840s. Gustavo Dudamel led the piece dutifully, knowing full well that the Vienna players are the masters of this music.
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NYCity Opera's Anna Caterina Antonacci Front Page
A Rare Appearance in New York
By: - Feb 23rd, 2018Anna Caterina Antonacci is a chanteuse supreme who rarely performs in New York. Michael Capasso, the General Director of the New York City Opera, induced Antonacci to give two concerts at Carnegie Hall. Perhaps she will come here to perform in an opera soon.
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Jerry Springer, the Opera at The New Group Front Page
Smash London Hit Transfers to New York
By: - Feb 22nd, 2018An obsession with the Jerry Springer show grew into Jerry Springer, the Opera. The show was a smash hit on London’s West End over a decade go. Tentative stabs at transfer across the pond are now fixed in a production by The New Group. Scott Elliott, artistic director of The New Group sensed that the time was now. After all, we have a reality show host in the White House.
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Lawrence Brownlee at Opera Philadelphia Front Page
World Premiere of Cycles of My Being
By: - Feb 21st, 2018What is it like to be a black man in America? Lawrence Brownlee was haunted by this question. He wanted to answer it in his art form, the classical song and aria. Joining forces with two MacArthur fellows, composer Tyshawn Sorey and poet Terrance Hayes, Brownlee, the artistic advisor to Opera Philadelphia, developed six songs, "Cycles of My Being." Its stunning world premiere was on stage at the Kimmel Center this week.
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Philip Glass at Carnegie Hall Front Page
Music with Changing Parts
By: - Feb 20th, 2018Is there a point, in the creation of art for the entertainment of others, where the value of that creative act has to be weighed against the limitations that the human body can endure? That question applies to both the audience and performers attending Friday night's concert at Carnegie Hall featuring the first New York concert performance in 38 years of Philip Glass' 1970 composition Music With Changing Parts.
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Nadine Sierra and Bryan Wagorn Front Page
Singing for Marilyn Horne at Park Avenue Armory
By: - Feb 18th, 2018Nadine Sierra has won the prestigious Marilyn Horne Foundation Vocal Competition and recently the Richard Tucker Award. It is said she will soon become a fixture on the international music stage. She certainly fits in with the beautiful, warm fixtures of the Officers’ Room at the Park Avenue Armory.
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Harriet's Return at New Federal Theatre Front Page
Karen Jones Meadows Writes and Acts
By: - Feb 17th, 2018Harriet’s Return, written and performed by Karen Jones Meadows, is presented by the New Federal Theatre through March 4 in New York. Harriet Tubman was recently suggested to replace Alexander Hamilton on the US twenty dollar bill, but this honor has been delayed. We are left to remember, even more significantly the life of a remarkable woman.
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Jaap Van Zweden Conducts Wagner Front Page
NY Phil Ignites
By: - Feb 17th, 2018When Jaap van Zweden was announced as the new music director of the Philharmonic, he was seen by pundits and punters alike as a firm, conservative voice designed to return America's oldest orchestra to its role as guardian of the standard European repertory of the 19th and 20th centuries. This week, he confirms that hope with a performance of Act I of Wagner's Die Walküre.
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Toe Pick at Dixon Place Front Page
Zachary Grady Creates the Fantasy World of Tonya Harding
By: - Feb 17th, 2018Tonya Harding’s story just won’t go away. Surrounded by media frenzy that fanned the fires around OJ Simpson's trial, which occurred at about the same time, it is a big, ugly, fascinating tale. Harding’s main competitor in figure skating competition got whacked in the leg. There enough images and tales to last for a long time. Toe Pick by Zachary Grady, who also plays Tonya, creates the frenzy in video images.
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L'Elisir d'Amore at the Metropolitan Opera Front Page
A Swig and A Miss
By: - Feb 13th, 2018The soprano Pretty Yende is one of the more sensational discoveries at the Metropolitan Opera this decade, wowing audiences with her sweet tone and superlative bel canto technique since making her debut in the company’s January, 2013 revival of Rossini's Le comte Ory. This month, she sings Adina in the revival of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore, a charming love story that maintains its front rank among the most popular Italian operatic comedies.
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One Drop at Theater for a New City Front Page
Andrea Fulton Develops a Folk Musical
By: - Feb 13th, 2018One Drop is a family drama with music by Andrea J. Fulton. It brings to life the politics of a young mixed-race man in post-reconstruction Louisiana. He bravely risks love despite the bigotry of the community around him.
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