Music
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New York City Opera Presents Spirited Spaghetti Western
Kristin Sampson Sings The Girl Minnie
By: - Sep 08th, 2017Puccini loved to compose and after the success of La Boheme, Madama Butterfly and Tosca he was looking for a new story. He wrote that these three operas already bored him. He had also had trouble with the librettists with whom he’d worked on these operas. Luigi Illica, co-librettist, even suggested that he get another composer to collaborate with him. Instead Puccini found new librettists. La Fanciulla del West is the upshot.
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Quadrophenia at Tanglewood
Pete Townsend’s Rock Opera
By: - Sep 03rd, 2017In 2015 Pete Townsend’s long time musical collaborator Rachel Fuller scored the rock opera for orchestra. They were married in February. It was performed to mostly favorable but mixed reviews with the 90-piece Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the 80 members of the London Oriana Choir. This version was performed last night at Tanglewood with Keith Lockhart conducting the Boston Pops. Opera tenor Alfie Boe, Townsend, and British rocker Billy Idol performed the vocals.
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Diana Ross Brought Motown to Tanglewood
A Musical Retrospective from Supremes to Disco
By: - Aug 31st, 2017Making her first Tanglewood appearance in decades the 73-year-old diva, Miss Diana Ross (as she insists on being addressed), had them dancing in the aisles. It was an evening of greatest hits her own as well as covers. With no opening act it proved to be an early evening in Lenox ending before 9 PM.
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Sting at Tanglewood
On Tour for Release of 57th and 9th
By: - Aug 30th, 2017In every sense it was a cool evening in the Shed as British rock star, Sting, brought his tour in support of the album 57th and 9th to Tanglewood. They have been on the road since last February.
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Madama Butterfly Returns to Metropolitan Opera
A Great Love Story
By: - Aug 28th, 2017It's one of the greatest love stories of the operatic canon. It's a sharp commentary on American imperialism and the uncaring treatment of "natives" by white people. It's both. It's brilliant. It's Butterfly.
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Dell'Arte's Calisto and Cunning Vixen
Two Worlds Mix and Match in Opera
By: - Aug 26th, 2017Separated by almost three hundred the years, the full productions of Dell’Arte’s annual festival both looked at how two worlds mix and match in Calisto and The Cunning Vixen. Both productions were at once delightful and moving.
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Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble Untamed
Impeccable Opera Produced with Verve
By: - Aug 25th, 2017Opera is a form comprised of many elements. Seldom are all of them addressed successfully. Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble succeeds in producing intriguing and complex theater with attention to every detail. How do they do it, opera after opera, concert after concert?
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Robin Hood the Musical by Kem Ludwig
World Premiere at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre
By: - Aug 21st, 2017San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre has the honor of mounting the World Premiere of Ken Ludwig’s newest comedy/farce “Robin Hood”, deftly directed by longtime stage and TV veteran Jessica Stone.
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Ivan Fischer's Don Giovanni
Mozart at his Most Sublime
By: - Aug 20th, 2017Ivan Fischer, the great Hungarian conductor, returns to Mozart's original version of Don Giovanni. Putting on a production from the Don's point of view, everything is a body. Furniture, peasants, chorus all are wearing white body suits and often strike arresting poses. This concept invites us to listen more closely to the terrific Budapest Festival Orchestra and the singers.
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Film Night at Tanglewood
Andris Nelsons Shares Conducting with John Williams
By: - Aug 20th, 2017Opening the first half of the annual Film Night at Tanglewood Andris Nelsons shared conducting duties with 85-year-old John Williams. Nelson's was a surprise guest trumpet soloist in the score of Lincoln by Williams. It was a sold out evening on a perfect summer night in Lenox. It is always a thrill to hear him conduct the iconic scores that have earned him a record 50 Academy Awards nominctions.
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Gil Shaham Plays Tchaikovsky
Langrée Leads Mostly Mozart
By: - Aug 18th, 2017Mostly Mozart programs with intent. While the most obvious connections between a program including Prokovief's 1st Symphony, Mozart's 25th and the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto may be their bridge positions between musical periods, the Classical, Romantic and Neoclassical, more than a ladder rung binds these pieces. Exuberant turns of phrase, often taken at a tear, provide their texture. Violinist Gil Shaham uses his consummate pyrotechnics on behalf of the music.
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Kirill Gerstein. at Mostly Mozart
Celebrating the love triangle of Robert and Clara Schumann and Brahms
By: - Aug 17th, 2017The trials and tribulations of the great Romantic composers have always fascinated the classical music-loving public. From the extramarital wanderings of Richard Wagner to Frederic Chopin's stormy relationship with the lady novelist George Sand, it has provided fodder for intermission conversation over coffee and small overpriced sandwiches. Arguably, the most famous triangle relationship was between three composers: Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann (née Wieck) and Johannes Brahms.
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Gershwin at 59E59 Theaters
Anderson Twins Play
By: - Aug 17th, 2017The Anderson Brothers, consummate musicians, make the case for Gershwin's popularity by citing his access to the new media, radio. The songs themselves are enough to convince us. Joined by Molly Ryan, who has a perfectly beautiful voice, the fabled composer entrances.
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The Fresh Grass Festival At MASS MoCA
Thirty Days to Countdown
By: - Aug 15th, 2017We are now one month away from the opening of the three day 'Fresh Grass' festival that takes place, yearly, on the grounds of MASS MoCA, located in North Adams, Massachusetts.
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Company by Stephen Sondheim
Stunning Revival at Barrington Stage Company
By: - Aug 15th, 2017This season Julianne Boyd has taken another crack at Sondheim's Company and critics appear to be unanimous that a sensational production is on the short list of her best work. She is noted for loving musicals and this one is a corker.
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Violinist Joshua Bell
A Master Musician Mesmerises Tanglewood
By: - Aug 15th, 2017Youthful, still, at 49, Joshua Bell proved his place in the history of great performances at Tanglewood, when playing Mendelssohn's, 'Violin Concerto in E minor, Opus 64.
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International Contemporary Ensemble at Mostly Mozart
How Forests Think
By: - Aug 14th, 2017International Contemporary Ensemble is the go-to group for the performance of contemporary music.They presentedd three important contemporary composers as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival.
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Lawrence Brownlee at the Park Avenue Armory
Myra Huang and Jason Moran, Piano Partners
By: - Aug 12th, 2017Lawrence Brownlee, tenor, showed us his stuff, ranging from the baroque to Lead Belly.. We changed rooms at the Park Avenue Armory, moving from the regal Officers Room to the Veterans Room as we moved forward in musical time. At the Armory, music is presented for pleasure, for illumination and surprise.
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Festival of Contemporary Music Opens
Tanglewood's Annual Offering
By: - Aug 12th, 2017The Festival of Contemporary Music is a highlight of the Tanglewood season. Curators assemble concerts from commissioned works and also from composers whose works form the canon of the contemporary music scene. Opening night suggested how rich this repertoire has become.
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Hamlet Opera in Oakland
West Edge Opera at the Pacific Pipe Warehouse
By: - Aug 11th, 2017Much of the criticism of this work is noteworthy but inappropriate. Complainers argue that the opera misses much of the play, which must be expected unless you want a five-hour opera. This is the same argument people use when they’ve read a long book and then see the movie.
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The Chastity Tree by West Edge Opera
Pacific Pipe Warehouse In Oakland
By: - Aug 09th, 2017The music of The Chastity Tree is very much of its time and place. From the classic era, it still embraces baroque traces in tinkling harpsichord and clipped recitatives. The Bay Area is blessed with and attracts an abundance of great young opera singers, and West Edge always casts well from this enviable pool.
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Blues Is a Woman
Custom Made in San Freancico
By: - Aug 09th, 2017After development at music venues, the musical revue "Blues is a Woman" has begun a theatrical run at Custom Made Theater in San Francisco. In a memorable production, six women wail and moan and plead in a rewarding evening of blues standards and original music by lead singer Pamela Rose in a format that is as informative as it is entertaining.
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Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis Mostly Mozart
Reconciliation, Restitution and Reformation
By: - Aug 08th, 2017This concert at Mostly Mozart was billed as a musical offering from Brahms, Bach and Mendelssohn. It seemed a stretch to hear these works without the centerpiece composer featured, except as an artist who liked to spell Bach's name in notes. The spirit was Mozartian, full of joy and inviting melodies, Featuring Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis as soloists, who brought Schumann to the table in the slow movement of his violin concerto, it was a rich evening of music. A delightful offering.
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Remembering Barbara Cook
Iconic Broadway and Cabaret Singer at 89
By: - Aug 08th, 2017Broadway and cabaret artist Barbara Cook was 80 wehen we first saw her perform at Ozawa Hall and several times after that. In Indiana we enjoyed a concert wth Michael Feistein and an interview for critics that followed. We have compiled a collage from those reviews.
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Hair in Chicago
Revisiting the Age of Aquarius
By: - Aug 08th, 2017A half century later in the spirit of the Summer of Love there is a revival of Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical. Two and a half generations of later it still casts magical spells. Nancy Bishop takes on a trip down memory lane.
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