This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on February 9, 2007. Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- At the edge of the sea, a middle-aged man, taut with repression, watches a group of boys carelessly tossing a beach ball. He singles out a blond youth, godlike among them. They dance an ingeniously constructed duet full of deep shifting feelings, made furtive by the incursions of the carefree adolescent gang. This is the most affecting scene in John Neumeier's ``Death in Venice,'' based on Thomas Mann's 1912 novella and set to … [Read more...]

This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on February 5, 2007. Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Seven devout young men from a long-ago shtetl dance, arms linked, creating an impenetrable wall with their black-clad bodies. Their movement is both angular and sinuous, mirroring Leonard Bernstein's score, which couples modern dissonance with undulating ethnic references. Suddenly the figures break free, making cryptic, emphatic gestures with their hands, each body now a separate locus of mystery and danger. This is the opening … [Read more...]