Front Page
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Sam Shepard's Fool for Love
At The Stage in San Jose
By: - Nov 29th, 2017Fool for Love is one of Sam Shepard's most respected works, and the cast of the San Jose Stage production extracts every bit of meaning and emotion from it.
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Hanging Out With Brad Smith
In Search of Exquisite Port in Porto
By: - Nov 28th, 2017Brad Smith, a fellow traveler in the TAP Wine Tour is a port authority, reaconteur and comedian. It was a non stop flow of information, insights and humor as we paired up for day trips first in Lisbon and then during the following weekend in Porto. The experience evoked hints of apricot, explosions of flavor, with an aftertaste of Dante and Poe.
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42nd Street
Bay Area Musicals in San Francisco
By: - Nov 27th, 2017There are several distinctions that mark this wonderful material. The 1980 stage show is based on the 1933 movie of the same name, which was the seminal film on this topic. As hard as it is to believe, a filmed musical had never been successfully transferred to the stage. This one succeeded wildly with critics, winning the Tony for Best Musical and more.
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Die Walküre at Lyric Opera of Chicago
Christine Goerke Defines Brunhilde
By: - Nov 27th, 2017Everything about the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s second installment in David Pountney's new Ring cycle feels, sounds and looks right. Yet starting with the singing actors’ performances seems only fair. They are superb, one and all. Surely one element of opera under the control of producers is the uniform quality of singing. The Lyric Opera understands this deeply and delivers.
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TAP Is On The Move
TAP Re-Brands
By: - Nov 27th, 2017TAP Airline of Portugal re-brands and becomes the largest promoter of Portugal in the world. Led by Abilio Martins, VP, of TAP, the airline has invested for the future resulting in great results since 2015. Marketing Portugal through its fine wine and cuisine is an important part of its new image.
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Becoming Dr. Ruth at Gable Stage
One-woman Show About Sex Therapist
By: - Nov 27th, 2017Famed sex therapist Dr. Ruth warmly welcomes us into her home in an impressive South Florida production. The play by Mark St. Germaine premiered at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield.The Broadway actress Anne O'Sullivan impressively inhabits the role.
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Seniors Visit Broadway
An Annual Visit with ATCA
By: - Nov 26th, 2017Not getting any younger Sandy and Gerry Katz treated themseles to a week at The Row in the heart of NY's theatre district. From there were short cab rides to all the hit shows from Hamilton and Come from Away. They ejoyed events of American Theatre Criics Assocation inncluding the traiditional lunch with the stars at Sardis.
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TAP Gala
Annual Awards Celebration for Wine and Tourism
By: - Nov 26th, 2017For its annual TAP Gala the Portuguese airline pulled out all the stops. It was a spectacular evening of food, drink, awards and entertanment. There were some 350 VIP guests assembled in a vast Porto warehouse. The event ran well past midnight ending with a performance by renowned Fado singer, Ana Moura.
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Vigneti Villabella an Italian Estate
Escape To Lake Garda And Sample Chiaretto
By: - Nov 25th, 2017After a forty year renovation, Vigneti Villabella has transformed into a viable member of the Relaix & Chateaux World Class Hotel group. The property is in the middle of a sustainable vineyard that overlooks Lake Garda, less then an hour from bustling Verona.
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TAP Dancing in Portugal
Final Day of Wine Tour
By: - Nov 25th, 2017Concluding the TAP Wine Tour after three days and many tastings I'm now a fan and convert. ASAP I plan to find a case of the Alvarinho style of white wine. Hopefully it will evoke ecotic memories of ancient quintas and elegant gourmet meal pairings. Even the best trips, however, have their challenges and pratfalls.
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West Side Story at Disney Hall
LA Philharmonic Provides Live Score
By: - Nov 24th, 2017The theater world was abuzz with West Side Story in the summer of 1957. It was to open on Broadway in the fall, and sure to be a smash hit. That was the word. It was also going to revolutionize musical theater. It did. Now the LA Philharmonic performs the score live as the film rolls on before the audience.
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Chiaretto-A Lighter Shade Of Pale Wine
A Chiaretto Revolution Is About To Reach America
By: - Nov 24th, 2017Rose wine sales have been growing in double figures during the past three years. Provence rose has led the way in sales worldwide, with many countries following. Italy will now enter the marketplace with Chiaretto, a rose made with red grapes.
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TAP Tap Tap in Portugal
Day Three of a Wine Tour
By: - Nov 24th, 2017By day two of the TAP Wine Tour we were locked into an endurance marathon. We tasted the wines of several regions; the Alentejo, Dao and Douro. Off schedule by two hours we arrived after dark at the venerable and ancient Quinta do Bomfim Symington. After a long hard day I passed on a late dinner that ended at 1:30 AM. The extra sleep helped to get back on track for the third and final day of the program which ended in Porto.
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On TAP in Portugal
Wine Tour Day Two
By: - Nov 23rd, 2017The wine tasting officially started in the late morning on the terrace of Quinta da Alorna. Some dozen or so wines later, after an elegant lunch, we flew to another region and Esporao. There was a third tasting and dinner at Monte da Ravasquaira. It was lights out at 2 AM then back on the bus at 9 AM. It was a pace that continued for the three day TAP Wine Tour.
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Black Rider at Shotgun Players
By William S. Burroughs With Music by Tom Waits
By: - Nov 23rd, 2017The play is a riff on Der Freischütz, (The Freeshooter) a Germanic tale made most famous by the seminal German Romantic opera of the same name, composed in 1821 by Carl Maria von Weber. Black Rider is a trip by William S. Burroughs with Music by Tom Waits
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Girls of the Golden West in San Francisco
World Premiere by John Adams and Peter Sellars
By: - Nov 23rd, 2017Subject matter when John Adams and Peter Sellars double team always arrests. 'Nixon in China' is particularly memorable as China continues to open. 'The Death of Klinghofer' is important as we allow madmen to be called terrorists. In 'Dr. Atomic', the most mememorable moment is Gerald Finley's singing of the John Donne poem, an exquisite and tortured moment in the life of this complicated physicist who helped launch the new nuclear world in Los Alamos. Now we have 'Girls of the Golden West' in San Francisco. Puccini never imagined anything like this!
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Dimitri Hvorostovsky Dies in London
Superstar Baritone an Opera Icon
By: - Nov 23rd, 2017Dimitri Hvorostovsky was at the forefront of a generation of singers that, in the 1990s, invigorated the opera houses of the West when they left the recently collapsed Soviet Union. His U.S. debut came in 1993 in a Lyric Opera of Chicago production of La Traviata. His first role at the Met was as Yeletsky in 1995, a role he would sing eight times that season. He died in London at the age of 55.
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TAP Wine Tour of Portugal
Day One in Lisbon
By: - Nov 22nd, 2017In mid November there was glorious, summer-like weather during the TAP Wine Tour. We were among 70 journalists from the States, Europe and Brazil. Over three days of bus and airplane hops we visited the major regions and quintas or estates in Portugal. Even for experienced food/ wine/ travel writers this was a rare opportunity. There were four daily vineyards or tasting rooms with several wines at each stop as well as five paired with gourmet meals for lunch and dinner. This is a report on day one, a Monday, which previewed the launch of the three day tour that ended with a TAP Gala in Porto.
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This One’s for the Girls by Dorothy Marcic
St. Luke’s Theatre Off Broadway
By: - Nov 21st, 2017Dorothy Marcic’s This One’s for the Girls evidences the changes in a nostalgic journey through selections from the music catalogue of pop songs performed by women since 1900.
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Giacomo Puccini’s La Rondine
Performed by Opera San José
By: - Nov 21st, 2017La Rondine is an outlier in the Puccini canon. If we dismiss his failed first full-length opera Edgar from consideration,
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The Minutes by Tracy Letts
World Premiere at Steppenwolf
By: - Nov 21st, 2017The playwright T racy Letts,, who can be depended upon for complexity, turns a small town city council meeting into a modern morality play. The Minutes is having i ts world Premiere at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre.
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HIR near Ft. Lauderdale
Taylor Mac's Outrageous Play at Island City Stage
By: - Nov 20th, 2017Ft. Lauderdale area theater company scores a triumph with its season-opening production of the wacky play HIR. The production is marked by first-rate acting HIR is a meaty play, with suggestions of absurd realism and Greek Tragedy.
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Hannigan and de Leeuw at Park Avenue Armory
Eric Satie's Death of Socrates Performed
By: - Nov 19th, 2017The lights in the corridor outside the Veterans Room in the Park Avenue Armory, dimmed to black and down the hallway proceeded the featured artist, Barbara Hannigan, bearing a candle.
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Love Never Dies in Florida
National Tour of Phantom Sequel
By: - Nov 18th, 2017Memorable music seduces in Love Never Dies. A fine cast is up to the task of singing with flair Andrew Lloyd Webber's soaring songs. The book is not a strong point
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Pianist Daniil Trifonov at Carnegie Hall
Valery Gergiev Conducts the Marinsky Orchestraa
By: - Nov 18th, 2017At Carnegie Hall on Wednesday night, the Mariinsky Orchestra and pianist Daniil Trifonov offered the New York premiere of the artist's first Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. Now 26, Trifonov has made a name for himself as a young and respected virtuoso, the leading example of a new generation of piano-slingers thrilling listeners around the world. This concerto, which received its New York premiere at this concert, is his shot at a whole new kind of legitimacy.
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