2015

Dance

Ballet Hispanico at the Joyce Theater

his program, divided into three sections, showed the company in very different lights. Up first, Show. Girl, with choreography by Rosie Herrera, costumes by Diana Ruettiger and lighting by Joshua Preston, uses the "Cuban cabaret ethic" to put forth dances that don't have much relationship to each other. Show. Girl opens with a line of women in columnar pink dresses with deep slits on both sides, moving rhythmically to silence other than the occasional slaps they give themselves. It's a bit unsettling. After a time, they sing a banal song about a turtle and move in the creamy light, posing for one another and the audience.
Musical Theater

A Musical Version of Doctor Zhivago at the Broadway Theatre

It begins with a funeral. It ends with a funeral. In between are jarring gun shots, explosions, fire, war, revolution, murder, suicide, blood, death—and everywhere passion, passion for a loved one, passion for a cause, passion for a home. The story of Doctor Zhivago, adapted from the movie based on the novel by Boris Pasternak, is huge, sweeping in scope. Even with a few lovely musical moments and some fine performances, this is a heavy, heavy evening in the theater.
Musical Theater

Something Rotten at the St. James Theatre

You’ll get a kick out of Something Rotten if you brush up your Shakespeare once you decide whether you want to be or not to be in attendance. If you get what’s going on in the previous sentences, then Something Rotten may be a show for you. It is packed with inside jokes — Shakespearean jokes, musical theatre jokes, gay jokes, feminist jokes, Jewish jokes, Puritan jokes, rock star jokes, star-crossed lover jokes and some just plain jokes. More than any show in recent memory your enjoyment of Something Rotten depends on where you’re coming from.
Musical Theater

A new Golden Age Broadway musical — An American in Paris at the Palace Theatre

It could have been created during the Golden Age of Broadway, so seamlessly integrated is the extraordinary, ballet-driven musical An American in Paris. The George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin score would have been enough by itself. Add to that the dancing, singing, acting, lighting, costumes and scenery (which seems to dance as well) all built on the vision of the newest brilliant choreographer-director, and the effect is overwhelmingly thrilling. Welcome to the age of Christopher Wheeldon on Broadway.
Theater

No-Win Productions presents the World Premiere of Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck, FJF, at the New Ohio Theater, February 28 – March 21 (closed)

Georg Büchner, in Germany, is considered one of the nation's greatest writers, and their most prestigious literary prize is named after him. However, productions of his plays are rare in this country, most likely to be found on university and college campuses—even during the bicentenary of his birth in 2013. That is why I was so especially keen to see the No-Win Productions' staging of his most famous play, Woyzeck, in Jeremy Duncan Pape's adaptation, entitled Woyzeck, FJF (the protagonist's initials).
Opera

New York City Opera Renaissance Gala Tribute to the Late Julius Rudel and Fundraiser

The demise of New York's beloved City Opera seemed sudden and bizarre—and so painful to opera lovers in the City, that many lost sight of what a long process it was. The board's bad decisions went back around a decade. The company's deficits climbed, and its endowment was repeatedly raided. There was time to change things, and the warning signals were unmistakable. The late Gérard Mortier's innovative spirit and visibility may have been an asset, but he was hardly famed for his thrift. In the end they couldn't afford even to get him started. When the NYCO couldn't meet the budget they had agreed to offer him, he backed out. His replacement, George Steel, had similar artistic inclinations.
Music

Michael Tilson Thomas conducts The London Symphony Orchestra in Colin Matthews, Gershwin (with Yuja Wang), and Shostakovich

If you feel pursued by good luck, do we call it paranoia? This is the question I must answer lately, since it seems the London Symphony has chased me down in San Francisco—to my great delight! Just a month ago, I had the good fortune of hearing Sir Mark Elder lead the orchestra in a solid Pathétique at the Barbican. By the time my visit was over, I had experienced the Berlin Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony, the Philharmonia and the London Philharmonic, as well. What puzzled throughout all this listening was the difficulty of telling the orchestras apart in London's Barbican and Festival Hall, clinical modern venues with limited reverberation and bass.
Coming Up and Of Note

Before Bach: Late Renaissance and Early Baroque Music at Carnegie Hall — a Month-Long Series in April and May

For years, New York City seemed to have missed out on the extraordinary efflorescence of research, study, and practice, which has made historically informed performance such an essential part of music-making in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The early music scene was hardly non-existent, but it was thin in comparison to centers like Boston, London, Amsterdam, and Paris, patronized by a small band of enthusiasts who at one time actually looked the part, crowding into Manhattan’s less fashionable churches in colorful woolen tunics, knitted caps, and Earth Shoes. There don’t seem to be many of those people left around, and a much larger range of audiences, spanning all age groups, now hear historical performances in the major venues, especially Carnegie Hall
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