Archives for July 2018

“I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one’s own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody’s else advice.”

W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

BROADWAY:
• The Band’s Visit (musical, PG-13, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Dear Evan Hansen (musical, PG-13, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, Broadway transfer of off-Broadway production, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• My Fair Lady (musical, G, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (musical, G, too complex for children, closes Sept. 6, reviewed here)
• Symphonie Fantastique (abstract underwater puppet show, G, closes Sept. 2, reviewed here)

IN GARRISON, N.Y.:
• Richard II (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Aug. 26, reviewed here)
• The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Aug. 24, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• Carmen Jones (musical, PG-13, closes Aug. 19, reviewed here)
• Mary Page Marlowe (drama, PG-13, extended through Aug. 19, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN NEW HOPE, PA.:
• 42nd Street (musical, G, closes Aug. 4, reviewed here)

“It is cruel to discover one’s mediocrity only when it is too late.”

W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

Arthur Rubinstein, André Previn, and the London Symphony perform Saint-Saëns’ Second Piano Concerto in G Minor, Op. 22. This performance was taped at Fairfield Hall, Croydon, England, in 1975, when Rubinstein was eighty-eight years old. Saint-Saëns heard him play the concerto in Paris in 1904:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“The joys which nature gives to us and does not withhold entirely from even the most abandoned among us—the discovery of new truths, the enjoyment of art, the spectacle of suffering eased and attempts to cure it as far as possible—all these are enough for the happiness of life. One is inclined to fear that everything else is madness and illusion.”

Camille Saint-Saëns, Problems and Mysteries

From 2008:

Jo Stafford, who died yesterday, is mostly forgotten now, save by those who were young a half-century ago, but back then she was one of the most popular singers in America, a wholesome beauty with a smooth, perfectly produced voice who sold millions and millions of records. Some of them were silly novelties, others bland period ballads, but when she had a good song to sing, nobody sang it better….

Read the whole thing here.

“In the days before machinery men and women who wanted to amuse themselves were compelled, in their humble way, to be artists. Now they sit still and permit professionals to entertain them by the aid of machinery. It is difficult to believe that general artistic culture can flourish in this atmosphere of passivity.”

Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception

Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony perform Gabriel Fauré’s “Mort de Mélisande” (from his incidental music for Maurice Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande in concert in 1959. This performance was originally telecast by Boston’s WGBH-TV:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)