The New York City subway is not, on any given day, the place to hear the music you need. It’s public in the extreme — in one of the world’s most public cities. And yet that’s where music ambushed me, a few months ago, in the form of a singer-guitarist whose high, sweet voice seemed to address my psyche with disarming directness. He was hoping for $1. I gave him $5. He … [Read more...] about Goodbye to the commercial music industry, hello to the rock stars next door
The opera that dares you to like it – and so you do. Defiantly.
Never has an opera dared me to like it as much as Chunky in Heat. The title sounds almost like a riff on “Chucky gets lucky,” the ad slogan for the comedy/horror film The Bride of Chucky. But no, it’s Chunky — about a supposedly overweight teen-age girl who is figuring out modern life from the vantage point of her backyard swimming pool. Seen May 31-June … [Read more...] about The opera that dares you to like it – and so you do. Defiantly.
Puritans on the verge of a nervous breakdown (and what they have to tell us): Axis Theatre Co. and Romeo Castellucci
The early New England settlers are looking more complicated these days, existing in a state of checkmate that defies their strongest faith. As kids, we’re taught how courageous the "pilgrims" of these religious sects were, with their willingness to brave the unsettled New World (not to mention the Boston climate) for the sake of freedom of worship. And even today there's some … [Read more...] about Puritans on the verge of a nervous breakdown (and what they have to tell us): Axis Theatre Co. and Romeo Castellucci
Music that sends cats hunting
Now that Yannick Nézet-Séguin is one of the best-liked conductors on the planet, he can afford to come out – as a cat person. The music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Metropolitan Opera recently paid a visit to the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PSPCA) and brought with him a playlist based on the musical responses he and his … [Read more...] about Music that sends cats hunting
King Lear with Glenda Jackson and everything else that’s happening now
Great Shakespeare plays take the color of their surroundings – if the production is doing its job, and Broadway’s new King Lear is accomplishing that. But then how could any alert, modern Lear production avoid the current parallels with lines such as these? “’Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind.” “Get thee glass eyes and, like a scurvy politician, seem … [Read more...] about King Lear with Glenda Jackson and everything else that’s happening now