Susan Hall
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Recent Articles:
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Piotr Anderszewki Revels in Bright Tones, Dark Hall Music
Bach and Schumann Entrance at Carnegie
By: - Mar 20th, 2015Twas a concert at Carnegie and all through the house, was quiet and darkness and nary a noise. From out of the dark came tones silvery and bright. They might have been struck by stars this night. But at the piano sat the Polish pianist and composer, Piotr Anderszewski, lofting Bach and Schumann. The beauty of Bach shone in a new light. Schumann's love messages to his future wife have never been more persuasive.
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Where Does Grand Opera Fit in the 21st Century Opinion
Peter Gelb is Not Answering the Question
By: - Mar 19th, 2015The New Yorker editor and Columbia's Bloomberg professor of business journalism, James Stewart, splendidly describes internal negotiations at the Met last summer as Peter Gelb, the general manager, tried to cut salaries and expenses by 16 % and the orchestra, chorus, stagehands and other smaller unions struggled for their lives. On the larger issue of the Met's survival at all, Stewart falls short.
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The New Group Presents Rasheeda Speaking Theatre
Tonya Pinkins and Dianne Wiest Shine
By: - Mar 15th, 2015Joel Drake Johnson, a Chicago playwright who is a Steppenwolf regular, hits New York with a big bang in Rasheeda Speaking. Mounted with two great actrsesses at its center, and CYnthia Nixon directing, Rasheeda Speaks has been a big hit for The New Group.
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Handel's Semele at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Music
Zhang Huan's Version Suggests Semele as HornRimmed Moon Goddess
By: - Mar 10th, 2015Handel's Semele is perfectly beautiful. When Handel wrote the Oratorio, he needed money and composed a piece suitable for the Easter season which was coming up soon. The work immediately sank into oblivion. That was almost three centuries ago.
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Gatti and Vienna Philharmonic's Brahms' Requiem Music
Damrau, Gerhaher and Westminster Choir at Carnegie Hall
By: - Mar 02nd, 2015Brahms' German Requiem is closer to tone poem than the dramatic opera of Verid's Requiem. In the hands of Danniele Gatti, off book on a very complicated score, the Requiem moved and mesmerized. Soloists and choir were reverently perfect. The sound lofted into Carnegie Hall, and, as Brahms wrote, how lovely is that dwelling place.
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Kirsten Flagstad, a Monodrama Theatre
Scandinavia House Presents the Woman Behind the Voice
By: - Mar 01st, 2015Calling Kirsten Flagstad the voice of the century is an understatement. The Norwegian soprano had a voice for the ages. Even in rachtety recordings of her performances, the big, beautiful clean sound is revealed. In a monodrama developed and directed by Einer Bjorge, a deeper picture of the famed singer is revealed by actress Nina Bendiksen.
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Woodie King Jr. Revives Dutchman Theatre
Amiri Baraka's First Play Hits Home
By: - Feb 27th, 2015Woodie King Jr. was an usher in the Cherry Lane Theatre when the then Leroi Jones' Dutchman was first produced. Sets for the second one acter, The Toilet, were designed by Larry Rivers, and everyone went to a warehouse to claim them when Rivers made a name for himself. Estimated to be worth $1,000,000, they have never been found. But the play Dutchman lives. King makes very clear its connection to the Wagner opera, as the overture and excerpts are played as prelude. Incidents in Ferguson and New York keep the issue of racial violence very present.
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An Octoroon at Theatre for a New Audience Theatre
Crooked Talk Straight to the Jugular
By: - Feb 26th, 2015Soho Rep inaugurated An Octoroon in 2013 and it won over critics and audiences as well as winning two Obies. Now it is reprised at the Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn. Committed to updating historic pieces for present day audiences at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, this play hits its mark.
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A Joyce Di Donato Master Class at Carnegie Music
Four Young Artists Blossom
By: - Feb 22nd, 2015Di Donato's opera performances are perfection. One day I rushed down to the AMC near Navy Pier in Chicago, because a friend had called to tell me about di Donato's last Cinderella. An encore HD performance was all I could catch, but it was sublime. What we have come to think of as a di Donato performance is perfection. Now I might be able to see perfection in action. I did.
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Youngblood at the Ensemble Theatre Theatre
Chiara Atik's Five Shades of Sex
By: - Feb 21st, 2015The play is called 5 Times in One Night and imagine what you will. But you won't guess until you watch, so don't read this review. It is a spoiler. Yet in the hands of director RJ Tolan and actors Dylan Dawson and Darcy Fowler, a rare balance between a non-invasive peak into intimate moments and non-porno sexuality is beautifully mounted.
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Stefano Gervasoni at the Miller Theatre Music
A Moving, Challenging and Delightful Portrait
By: - Feb 20th, 2015Stefano Gervasoni was at Julliard as a very young man, but he is not well-known stateside and deserves to be. His work makes experimentation 21st century style accessible and humane. Delighttful statements about timbre and texture and also us.
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Jamie Barton Transfixes at Zankel Hall Music
Winner of the Prestigious Cardiff Singer of the World
By: - Feb 17th, 2015Barton is a Berkshire fixture. She received extensive training as a recitalist at the Tanglewood Music Center, where she was a Fellow in Vocal Studies for two summers. There she worked with such artists and coaches as James Levine, Dawn Upshaw, and Phyllis Curtin.
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James Levine in Command at Carnegie Music
Netrebko a Luxury Substitute
By: - Feb 08th, 2015An orchestra like the Met, which nightly accompanies singers, is understandably appreciative of melody. But this was more than melody, It was dialogue and trios, to and fro, forcing a pleasurable attention to the music.
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Muti and the Chicago Symphony Part Two Music
Russian Tribute at Carnegie Hall
By: - Feb 01st, 2015Riccardo Muti is passionate about the place of music in human lives. To him, bringing music to tortured souls is imperative. So his selection of Scriabin's First Symphony, an Ode to Art, and Prokofiev's Cantata based on his film score for Alexander Nevsky is in tune with his mission. The very survival of the Russian soul was on line for both composers. Under Muti's baton, hundreds of superb musicians carried the message at Carnegie Hall.
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Muti and Chicago Symphony at Carnegie Music
Colors for the Ear from Mendelssohn, Debussy and Scriabin
By: - Feb 01st, 2015Muti can masterfully give the big picture. Yet in finding the trees in the forest, he makes the melodic and harmonic parts of a musical work shine like the facets of a big Hope diamond. Understanding better how Muti works the magic only makes hearing his music making with the great Chicago Symphony all the more enjoyable.
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Ildar Abdrazakov Seduces Carnegie Music
Superb Mzia Bakhtouridze at the Piano
By: - Jan 30th, 2015Ildar Abdrazakov made his Carnegie Hall debut in a program that would test any singer's mettle. The evening's pro0gram was divided into two parts. In the first, Glinka, Tchaikovsky and Mussorgky provided a pot pourri of songs and arias that often echoed the keys and tones of the Volga Boat song. Very Russian in color. Sometimes surprisingly un-Russian in brightness and lightness.
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Winners by Maggie Bofill Theatre
Stripped Bare Survivors of the Great Recession
By: - Jan 23rd, 2015Ensemble Studio Theatre and Radio Drama Network have teamed together to produce a play about now. It is delivered with grace and humor in a superbly acted depiction of life after the Great Recession.
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Charles Spencer Looks at King Killers Word
By: - Jan 22nd, 2015Charles Spencer was feted by Christie’s in New York on publication day and took to the podium like the Today show correspondent he was for almost a decade. He is as good a storyteller live as he is in print. Tracking down regicides is a thriller in Spencer's pen.
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Mozart's Sublime Abduction from the Seraglio Music
Pforzheim Mounts a Charming Production
By: - Jan 09th, 2015It is easy to see why young talent in Europe travels from small city to small city to sing and conduct opera. First rate production skills, beautiful theatres made to display the human voice, and audiences who appreciate the art form are everywhere to be found. This production of Mozart's first of the five late operas, and the only one written in German, met all of the formidable challenges.
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Boyhood: Film of the Year Film
Talking with Director Richard Linklater
By: - Dec 27th, 2014The technical feat of filming a boy's life for twelve years is staggering to contemplate. But what the auteur Richard Linklater is able to achieve in film is a masterpiece whose structure only enhances the experience. We spoke with him after a recent screening. He liked our comparison to Proust.
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Macbeth at the Manhattan School of Music Music
Bloch, Full-Blooded and Uninhibited
By: - Dec 11th, 2014Is opera an intimate art form? Houses in Europe tend to be small or feel intimate. Yet they are just right. Certainly opera has felt right in New York this week with the brilliant, intimate production of El Gato con Botas by the Gotham Chamber Opera and now, as big as Macbeth, in an intimate theatre at the Manhattan School of Music.
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Puss Kicks Up His Boot in Gotham Music
Ginger Costa-Jackson, a Purring, Prescient Gato
By: - Dec 07th, 2014All eyes are fixed on El Gato, as he virtually vibrates when his slender body is filled with song. Manipulated by three puppeteers, he is a slithering, prancing manipulator himself, entrancing as he bounds across the stage fixing the world to his vision. Puss in Boots is an old tale which holds two morals. One that dress and countenance can carry you far. Puss is a living example. He dons hat and cape and boots and becomes a courtier.
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The British Invade Portland, Maine Fine Arts
Museum Hosts the Berger Collection from Denver
By: - Nov 29th, 2014anything over 255 chars will be deleted.
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James Conlon Conducts a Brilliant Shostakovich Music
Lady Macbeth Morphs with Chatterley at the Met
By: - Nov 27th, 2014The production date is 1994. Graham Vick gets the credit. James Conlon conducted then, as he does this fall. The excellence from stem to stern is cause for celebration.
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Carmen Choreographed to Bizet by Ballet Hispanico Dance
White on Black Wrapped in Guernica Thrills at the Apollo
By: - Nov 23rd, 2014Carmen. How can you miss? To the incessant, erotic beat of Bizet's music, the dancers create jealousy, passion, lust and innocence in white and black against a back drop of Picasso's Guernica.
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