John Holiday, Andrew Ousley’s latest pick as an artist to perform in his Crypt Session series, sounds like an angel and looks like a linebacker. It’s more apt to note that while Holiday is billed as a counter tenor, he is truly a soprano, comfortable in the very unusual upper registers usually associated with the female voice. His is not a falsetto.

Wines from Alsace, an area that was French and German have history on their side. The regions culture and traditions have been preserved for centuries, just as the wines from Lucien Albrecht, who, started in 1425.

Lawrence Brownlee is a world class bel canto singer. He is also a daring artist who is moving out of his comfort zone to tell new truths in song. The New York premiere of Cycles of My Being by Tyshawn Sorey, was presented at Carnegie Hall.

Fun Home is a relatable, relevant, touching and funny piece. The prize-winning musical featured the first all female writing team to win a Tony award.

Philip Glass holds the Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall for this season. A concert honoring his work was performed by the splendid Pacific Symphony. Carl St. Clair conducted. He has been the music director of this symphony for decades. The performance made the benefits of consistent leadership over time clear

A good idea is a good idea. That might be the rationale between this weeks New York Philharmonic program which pairs Mozart’s charming Piano Concerto No. 22 with Anton Bruckner’s sprawling, ambitious and ultimately unfinished Symphony No. 9 under the baton of guest conductor Christopher Eschenbach. For New York’s Bruckner enthusiasts, this concert evoked memories of January 2017. Back then Daniel Barenboim led the Berlin Staatskapelle in a cycle of Bruckner symphonies at Carnegie Hall, pairing the shorter works with the major Mozart piano concertos. (Barenboim paired the Ninth with Piano Concerto No. 23.)

Cendrillon is Massenet's fourteenth opera, written at the apex of his popularity as the last acknowledged master of the French romantic style. As conducted here by Bertrand de Billy, its score has the weight of fairy cake, high in sugary melodies and whipped by conductor Bertrand de Billy into an airy soufflé of sound. It's hard to believe it, but this run marked the Metropolitan Opera debut for an enchanting work.

Milwaukee Chamber Theatre hits a high note with this powerful, intense play. It may not be quite as shocking as it was when the play first debuted (and this reviewer saw it in New York), but it remains topical in its insistence that the element of doubt can be as demonizing as certainty, depending on where the power exists. With this review we welcome American Theatre Critics Associaton member, Anne Siegel, as our Milwaukee correspondant.

Julia Bullock swept onto the stage in a long green dress whose full skirt was filled with white flowers reminiscent of the gardenias Billie Holiday always wore in her hair. After Schubert, Samuel Barber and Gabriel Faure, we dug into Holiday, Alberta Hunter and Nina Simone with the singer.

Nikolai Rimksy-Korsakov is one of the most important opera composers of 19th century Russia. A member of the "Mighty Handful", he revised works by Mussorgsky, taught Stravinsky and was a master of orchestration and melody. However, outside of a few concert works, the bulk of his music, most notably a long catalogue of operas, receives little attention. This made it all the more interesting that the Manhattan School of Music's Senior Opera Theater decided to mount The Snow Maiden, an enchanting fairy tale opera and the composer's personal favorite.

Aspect presents music in a new concert format, as engaging as it is thought-provoking. In a program at the Italian Academy at Columbia University, Stephen Johnson, a BBC broadcaster, spoke about Weimar, Germany as a cradle of musical talent. Listening to Bach, Mendelssohn and Liszt, there is no question about the talent. Each of these composers had formative experiences in Weimar.

Angels in America is one of the major theatrical events on Broadway this Spring. The highly acclaimed National Theatre Production is here for a limited run through June. The two parts Millennium Approaches and Perestrokia make for a marathon of theater going (well over 7 hours) but you will leave the theater dazed by what you have seen and heard.

There ought to be a law stating all British farces and comedies must be staged by British-trained directors in order to get the full impact of their special, zany, erudite, and/or silly brand of comedy. “How the Other Half Loves” by Sir ASlan Ayckbourn is blessed in having six talented actors who know their stuff; perform on NCRT’s stage and have fun in doing it.

The subject of ‘arranged marriage’ is still practiced in some places and cultures in the world. But in the West, and especially here, in America, one might have some difficulty finding small enclaves of religious separatists that still cling to the old ways of religious observance.

Douglas McGrath has taken Edith Wharton’s novel of constricted high society in New York City in the 1870s and condensed it to 100 minutes. By focusing on specific scenes with little connection between them, at times it feels episodic and lacks flow.

Glenn Loney’s massive resume in 2006 listed more than 1,000 magazine and journal articles, 530 reviews, 7 books, 6 unpublished plays, 2 detailed show program notes, editing or contributions to 22 books, and 39 in-depth interviews for Cue magazine. Among the books is a two-volume "20th Century Theatre," a day-by-day chronology of American, British, and Canadian Theatre activity from 1900 to 1980. He is rembered by William Hirschman, president of American Theatre Critics Association.

Congratulations to playwright, Martyna Majok, and Mandy Greenfield, artistic director of Williamstown Theatre Festival, Her harrowing play, Cost of Living, had its world premiere in Williamstown in July, 2016. The production moved to New York's Manhattan Theatre Club in 2017. The play has won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. We have reposted the review in Berkshire Fine Arts.

The new New York City Opera extends our horizons. Italo Montemezzi's highly successful Love of Three Kings is presented in its noir depth at the Rose Theater of Lincoln Center.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra played its third and final Carnegie Hall concert on Friday night. This venerable orchestra has found its passion and spark again under the baton of music director Andris Nelsons. As an ensemble, it is moving forward in a bold and forthright manner. And yet, some of its past tendencies appeared in this concert, resulting in a curious evening of variable quality.

A play about preserving Shakespeare's words honored with ATCA/Steinberg awards. The American Theatre Critics Association award goes to Lauren Gunderson for The Book of Will.

The response of former Boston After Dark editor, Arnie Reisman, to former Cambridge Phoenix editor, Harper Barnes, was too long to post as a comment. Accordingly, we have opted to run it under Reisman's byline. He was my first editor at the Brandeis Univertsity Justice and later hired me for Boston After Dark. There is much yet to be said about alternative media in the 1970s but with this exchange matters get curiouser and curiouser.

In Antony Sher's take on the role, Lear divests himself of authority as well as land. Faced now with relationships which reveal the true characters of not only his daughters, but his friends, his allies and a wise, poetic fool he meets along the way, Lear is stripped to his essence.

The recently published book Astral Weeks, by Ryan Walsh, has brought national attention to the counter culture of Boston/ Cambridge in 1968. This extensive interview with Harper Barnes, former editor of the Cambridge Phoenix and columnist for The Real Paper, covers developments in the early 1970s. It was a fertile era that launched careers of numerous arts critics and political commentators. After a stint in Boston, eventually, he returned to the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch and the city where he continues to reside.

Edgar & Emily is an intriguing new play by William McDonough. The finely-tuned world-premiere production is running at Palm Beach Dramaworks in Florida. Actors and technical elements are strong in the debut staging

It might be his good looks. It might be his magnetic stage presence. It might be his voice. Or it might be his rash of cancellations at the Metropolitan Opera in the last few seasons. Either way, tenor Jonas Kaufmann, who hasn't sung Wagner on a New York stage since 2013, has a fan following. They were out in force at Carnegie Hall on Thursday night to hear him sing