The Young and Young at Heart: Jerome Robbins’ “Fancy Free” at the American Ballet Theater

Dance

The Young and Young at Heart: Jerome Robbins’ “Fancy Free” at the American Ballet Theater

October 29, 2018Mari S. Gold

As part of ABT’s Women’s Movement, an ongoing initiative to support the creation, exploration and staging of new works by female choreographers, the first ballet of this matinee performance was Le Jeune, choreographed by Lauren Lovette. Ten dancers from the ABT apprentice group and the ABT Studio Company danced the ten-minute long work displaying some of their considerable abilities. The arabesques, turns and lifts were lovely if not inspiring, as were the young performers. However, the music, Equus by Eric Whitacre, is awful—bombastic with many switches of rhythm that go nowhere. Lovette is credited with “costume concept” which sounds like she thought of dressing the women in pink with belts and the boys in black—again, perfectly fine but hardly revolutionary. Still, the dancers were lively, energetic and full of promise.

Jazz

Deborah Stone: Still Exactly Where I Belong, at Don’t Tell Mama

May 17, 2017Michael Miller

I never seem to get to jazz and cabaret performances very often, but Deborah Stone’s performance, Still Exactly Where I Belong, at Don’t Tell Mama was memorable, and I’ll be ready for her next appearance, probably in the fall. This was a gem of charm, intimacy, and meticulous musical preparation combined with a personal, heartfelt relationship to the songs. Ms. Stone is a versatile artist, having interwoven careers as and actress, singer, and above all dancer. All were active—and interacting—in her show

Music

Leonard Bernstein in 1947. Photo Victor Kraft.

Michael Tilson Thomas Leads the San Francisco Symphony in Leonard Bernstein’s “Age of Anxiety” Symphony and Mahler’s Fourth

May 23, 2015Steven Kruger

There is a sound you sometimes feel after midnight, high up in Manhattan. It comes from maybe thirty blocks away. Very faint. In the stillness of your mind, you know it is a lonely taxi horn dancing with the doppler effect. But in the small hours of the city, you wonder who might be riding home amongst sleeping millions, and how boozily, and what love affairs or personal dramas might now begin or end. New York is like that. In its darkness, taxis are crickets, and you listen.

Opera

Julius Rudel (Vienna 1921 - New York 2014)

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

March 29, 2015Michael Miller

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.

Musical Theater

On the Town – How To Do It Right

October 24, 2014Nancy Salz

On The Town, Leonard Bernstein’s first musical, opened on Broadway on December 28, 1944, during WWII. The show began then and now with the Star Spangled Banner to honor country and the armed forces.

A London Summer with Huntley Dent

Bernstein’s Mass at the Royal Festival Hall

July 13, 2010Huntley Dent

“My time will come.” This, the most famous quote from Gustav Mahler, wouldn’t seem apt for the music of Leonard Bernstein. His time was now, over and over, whatever decade from the Forties to the Eighties one is talking about. But there were dips in his meteoric trajectory, and Mass, which opened Kennedy Center in 1972, was a drastic one. Reviews weren’t merely dismissive; they expressed embarrassment for the composer, who leapt from his pedestal as an icon of classical music into the arms of hippies, flower children, and the Age of Aquarius. The work owed a distressing amount to Hair, the musical, and less obviously to Benjamin Britten and Bernstein’s own earlier works. As a spectacle, it combined the liturgy of the Latin Mass with episodes of the mob (updated with tie-dye, peasant blouses, and afros) jeering at the Church and belief in God generally. Bernstein wasn’t, shall we say, the most obvious candidate for a work of Christian devotion, and with eyes averted from the schlocky libretto -- crafted by Broadway baby Stephen Schwartz, who was young but no wunderkind-- the composer’s admirers chose to bury Mass as an ecumenical mess. The prevailing wisdom was that this, too, shall pass.

Music

No Dudamania in San Francisco: Dudamel leads the LA Philharmonic in Bernstein and Tchaikovsky

May 17, 2010Steven Kruger

There is a sound you sometimes hear after midnight, high up in Manhattan. It comes from maybe thirty blocks away. Very faint. In the stillness of your mind, you know it is a lonely taxi horn dancing with the doppler effect. But in the small hours of the city, you wonder who might be riding home amongst sleeping millions, and how boozily, and what love affairs or personal dramas are about to begin or end. New York is like that. In its darkness, taxis are crickets, and you listen.