Music
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Otello
West Bay Conquers Notoriously Difficult Verdi Masterpiece
By: - May 26th, 2025Many opera aficionados argue that Arrigo Boito's libretto improves on the Shakespeare source material. Machinations by Iago, one of the best developed and vile villains in literature, wreak tragedy upon Otello and Desdemona in response to Iago's being passed over for a promotion. Verdi's music is both sublime and powerful.
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Heartbeat Opera Shapeshifts Faust
Gounod's Opera Updated
By: - May 20th, 2025Heartbeat Opera is a crown jewel in New York’s opera diadem. Their productions make opera accessible and compelling to contemporary audiences by breathing new life into beloved classics. Faust, their current production running through May 25, is no exception—it’s a bold, inventive take that succeeds on many fronts.
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The Engish Concert at Carnegie Hall
A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever
By: - May 07th, 2025The English Concert performed a semi-staged, off-book production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto at Carnegie Hall. This annual visit by one of the world’s premier Baroque ensembles is eagerly awaited — and this year did not disappoint.
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Count Basie Band in Pittsfield
Headlined Pittsfield CityJazz Festival
By: - May 04th, 2025The annual Pittsfield Jazz Festival ended last night with the legendary Count Basie Band. Now some 90-years-old it has been led by Scotty Barnhart since 2013.
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Handel in Hudson
R.B. Schlather Captures Handel's Spirit with a Fresh View
By: - May 02nd, 2025Hudson Hall in Hudson, New York, presents Handel’s Giulio Cesare as part of its ambitious celebration of the composer’s forty operas—each of which will eventually be staged here. It’s an exciting prospect.
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Don Giovanni Entrances in Philadelphia
Opera Philadelphia Triumphs
By: - Apr 29th, 2025Opera Philadelphia is presenting Mozart’s original version of Don Giovanni at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. It’s a lively, visually striking production designed to showcase both the richness of Mozart’s score and Da Ponte’s intricate libretto.
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Floyd Collins Echoes at Lincoln Center
Fresh Faces Enliven the Cast
By: - Apr 24th, 2025In 1925, a seemingly prescient family farmer became captivated by the idea of bringing a one-act Barnum and Bailey-style circus to the caves of Kentucky. Against this backdrop unfolds the story of Floyd Collins, whose entrapment in this famously fragile landscape—formed by the dissolution of limestone, collapsing sinkholes, sinking streams, and springs—captured national attention. His burial in the very Sand Cave he had chosen became a media sensation. Now it is a musical, Floyd Collins.
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Legendary Music Producer John Sdoucous
Still Active Until Recent Demise at 90
By: - Apr 23rd, 2025Music producer John Sdoucous was a force during the era of Boston’s Counterculture. Commissioned by Mayor Kevin White he curated the important series Boston On the Common. It brought major musicians to perform in the heart of the city. He also worked with George Wein and his Newport Festival. For many years he resided in Florida and Cape Co
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Peter Wolf Publishes Memoir
Waiting on the Moon: Artists, Poets, Drifters, Grifters, and Goddesses
By: - Apr 23rd, 2025When not on tour, Peter Wolf and Magic Dick were my neighbors in the notorious Murder Building. Rent was cheap in the heart of Harvard Square. Wolf was a part of Ed Hood's literary salon which hosted Warhol's factory members and the Velvet Underground. With fellow students of the Museum School he fronted his first group The Hallucinations. He literally moonlighted as a DJ for the emerging WBCN-FM. After two years under the radar his second band J Geils signed with unfavorable terms to Atlantic Records. After several albums and little to show for it they signed with EMI. Their single "Centerfold" went to number one. Having finally made it the band mysteriously canned Wolf and folded after one more album. The well written book has anecdotes of his ventures with the rich and famous including marriage to Faye Dunaway.
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Zorro
Origins of a Superhero at Opera San Jose
By: - Apr 21st, 2025Diego returns to his father's home in Los Angeles to find his former friend Moncada is now mayor and brutalizes mestizos (mixed bloods), a group that includes Diego's love, Ana Maria. In this origin story, Diego takes on the disguise Zorro and fights to improve the plight of the disadvantaged.
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Erin Morley Enchants at Park Avenue Armory
Notes Bloom as Morley Sings of Flowers and Birds
By: - Apr 13th, 2025Erin Morley sang hopefully of spring and blooms and birds at the Park Avenue Armory. Ms. Morley is clearly a voice for our times.
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Grease
Nostalgia and Hijinks by the Bucketful at Altarena Playhouse
By: - Mar 31st, 2025Danny Zuko and Sandy Dumbrowski didn't expect to see each other after their summer fling, but Sandy transfers into Danny's school, Rydell High. How can Danny still be cool with his Greaser friends, yet rekindle the sensitive relationship with Sandy? And how can Sandy befriend the Pink Ladies while poaching in their territory? A great soundtrack and a ton of humor tell the story.
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Kirill Petrenko DIscusses Being Jewish
Petrenko Has Led the Berlin Philharmonic for Five Years
By: - Mar 30th, 2025When Kirill Petrenko was elected by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra members to lead their orchestra five years ago, people were surprised. Becauase he is Russian by birth? No, because he is a Jew. Now the Berlin PHilharmonic publishes an interview with him on what it is like for him to be Jewish.
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Cleveland Orchestra Offers Defiant Hope at Carnegie
Welser-Most Conducts Speaking Instruments
By: - Mar 21st, 2025Franz Welser-Most, and the Cleveland Orchestra he will have directed longer than any other conductor, arrived at Carnegie Hall this week to bring us hope through music in these difficult times.
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Pittsfield CityJazz Festival
Highlighta Include Count Basie Orchestra at the Colonlal
By: - Mar 18th, 2025Here is the lineup for the nineteenth Pittsfield CityJazz Festival, which runs from April 24 through May 4 in downtown Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the cultural capital of the Berkshires.
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Victoria Bond Presents the Jack Quartet
A Cutting Edge Anniversary Celebration
By: - Mar 15th, 2025Victoria Bond, composer and conductor, presents what she calls cutting edge music. Cutting edge it is. Yet, what Bond is able to do for this famously inaccessible music, is to bring it to the ear and give pleasure. At the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater in Symphony Space in New York, the Jack Quartet performed.
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Nobody Loves You
ACT's Sparkling Musical Send-up of Reality Dating Shows
By: - Mar 14th, 2025Jeff is a PhD candidate in philosophy who ridicules reality shows. But chasing after his ex-girlfriend, he finds himself in the studio of such a show. Although he's candid about hating everything about them, the show runner anticipates good audience response if Jeff becomes a contestant. Like oil and water, they don't mix. But comedy ensues.
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Fly by Night
Hillbarn's Charming Rendition of a Musical About Hope, Love, and Loss
By: - Mar 11th, 2025Daphne leaves South Dakota for New York City along with sister Miriam. Set over a year leading up to the Northeast Blackout of 1965, one sister seeks stardom on Broadway and the other is happy as a diner waitress. Their aspirations, relationships, and random events are the basis for a thoughtful pop musical.
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Happy Pleasant Valley: A Senior Sex Scandal Murder Mystery Musical
Min Kahng Creates Another Lively Stage Piece for TheatreWorks Silicon Valley
By: - Mar 10th, 2025Korean-American June lives in an assisted living facility. She swears up a storm; has major sex urges; and unfortunately, two men have died in her bed. Granddaughter Jade is an influencer and vloger who insinuates herself into June's life for her own selfish purposes, but when June is accused of murder, they will work toward common purpose in this comedy musical.
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The Pigeon Keeper
Opera Parallele's World Premiere of a Timely Fable
By: - Mar 08th, 2025During a time of drought and poor fish catch, a fisherman and his daughter save a young boy from the sea, but he is from a different land and does not speak their language. Clashes ensue over how to deal with this involuntary interloper. The touching and well-produced opera benefits from its relevance to our current times and from the large role played by the San Francisco Girls Chorus.
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Koln 75, the Movie, Premieres in Berlin
Keith Jarrett's Signature Evening and Engaging Film
By: - Mar 05th, 2025Keith Jarrett’s performance in Cologne, Germany, in 1975 is widely regarded as one of the great solo concerts of all time. The new film Koln '75 about this iconic moment asks, “How did the concert come to be?”
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Don Giovanni
Livermore Valley Opera's Fine Rendering of Mozart and da Ponte's Masterpiece
By: - Mar 03rd, 2025In this great serio-comic fantasy, the famed lothario Don Giovanni "courts" three ladies in short order. He also slays the father of one, setting off a man hunt and revenge by the spirit of the deceased.
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Dalia Stasveska Debuts at the Berlin Philharmonic
Human Impact on Nature Explored in Music
By: - Mar 01st, 2025Dahlia Stasevska, known for her commanding presence and elegant, balletic gestures, recently debuted with the Berlin Philharmonic. The response was enthusiastic. Her tenure as Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, extended through 2027, reflects her growing prominence in the classical world.
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Jesus Christ Superstar
A Super Production by Berkeley Playhouse
By: - Feb 25th, 2025Jesus Christ's betrayal and crucifixion as rendered by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice's stands as one of the long running musicals in history. To many theatergoers, it is simply a beautifully crafted work with fine music and intense drama. Yet to some, it teems with controversy as the character representations don't fit in traditionalists' boxes.
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Marin Alsop Debuts with the Berlin Phil
Berin Philharmonie Explores Loss of Paradise in Music
By: - Feb 23rd, 2025Marin Alsop debuts with the Berlin Philharmonie in Berlin. Leading the Berlin Philharmonic for the first time, she chose a special, continent-spanning program. The world premiere of Day Night Day by Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen refers to the songs of the Sami, the indigenous people of northern Finland and revolves around the northern lights and ice that covers and protects the local landscape. The BSO was a commissioner.
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