Music
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La Traviata at the Lyric Opera of Chicago
Marina Rebeka Stars in Fabulous Production
By: - Dec 02nd, 2013Under General Director Anthony Freud, the Lyric Opera is transforming opera for the 21st century. Coming seasons will be increasingly General Manager Anthony Freud’s own creations and should be fascinating to watch unfold.
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2014 Boston Pops Season
Fun Fun Fun From May 7 to June 14
By: - Dec 02nd, 2013The 2014 Boston Pops spring season will introduce audiences to debut appearances by Warren Haynes (5/13 & 14), Tony award-winning Billy Porter (5/20 &21), and conductor Sarah Hicks (5/23 & 24), as well as first-time collaborations with the New York-based jazz band sensation The Hot Sardines (5/28-30) and Cirque de la Symphonie (5/16 & 17),the wildly unique circus act that brings its aerial flyers, acrobats, dancers, and jugglers to orchestral stages throughout the country. Opening night features comic Jason Alexander.
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Lizzie Borden's Forty Whacks
Boston Lyric Opera Slated for Tanglewood
By: - Nov 25th, 2013Although its mid-century Freudianism is dated, "Lizzie Borden" still packs a wallop as a work of music-drama. The recent Boston Lyric Opera production was a preview for a performance at Tanglewood this summer.
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Instrumental Magic
String Madness and Accord
By: - Nov 25th, 2013I generally avoid reviewing cd’s that are void of singing, so it is with some trepidation that I approach these two releases, and would with even greater hesitation were it not that each of them delights, astounds and begs me to listen to them repeatedly and often.
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Hindemith and Me
Celebrating a Titan of Contemporary Music
By: - Nov 23rd, 2013If I had the means and the energy, I’d organize a festival of some sort. Instead I’m commissioning a Hindemith Bobblehead for my office. Barack Obama has one. So does Oprah, so why not Hindemith? I’m going to stick it on a small pedestal with a plaque that has my favorite Hindemith quote: “There are 12 tones. Treat them carefully.†You gotta love that guy. i
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2014 Tanglewood Schedule
James Taylor Returns July 3 and 4
By: - Nov 21st, 2013The Boston Symphony Orchestra announces the schedule for its 2014 Tanglewood program. Aftar a hiatus last year, as has become traditional, James Taylor returns for the Fourth of July Weekend. On July 5 Renee Fleming will appear on the opening night of the classical program. Popular artists will be announced as they are booked.
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Four Saints in Three Acts
Intriguing Opera by Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thompson
By: - Nov 19th, 2013Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson collaborated on a one-of-a-kind opera that keeps on attracting audiences generation after generation. Conductor Gil Rose led a recent concert performance of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project at Jordan Hall, of the New England Conservatory. But, it’s an awful lot of whimsy. (And I hate whimsy.)
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Newport Jazz Festival to Celebrate 60th
Greetings From Its Founder George Wein
By: - Nov 19th, 2013I’ve been producing the Newport Jazz Festival since 1954 and I'm proud to announce that the festival will be celebrating its 60th anniversary on August 1 - 3, 2014. This may be the first time you're hearing from me personally, but I know I've met many of you festival-goers while riding around on my golf-cart, known as the "Wein Machine." It's always great to talk with fellow jazz-lovers.
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Awakening by Martin Case and Joseph Brogan
A Shamanic Journey Across the Sonic Landscape
By: - Nov 15th, 2013No coincidence that the sexier, more adulterated human voice of the saxophone takes the lead in the urban groove and neon sizzle of “Dance†and again in “Re-entry.†It is our connection to the dark, after all, that haunts us and, strange to say, fortifies us for a return to the light of common day.
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Nico Muhly's Opera Two Boys at the Met
From Awakening Desire to Identity, A Treacherous Course
By: - Nov 14th, 2013Nico Muhly's opera Two Boys was a success at the Metropolitan Opera. What the music and the story convey is the feeling of sexual awakening in puberty. Only a first-rate article in Salon.com by J. Bryan Lowder talks about “desire before identity.â€
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Corelli and the Elevator
Exploring Musical Ups and Downs
By: - Nov 14th, 2013Go for it. What would you say has been the most important invention over the past five hundred years or so? The automobile? Nuclear power? The microchip? Sliced bread? My vote…(drum roll)…the elevator!
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Milos Karadaglic, the Brooklyn Riders, Bela Fleck
At New York's Le Poisson Rouge
By: - Nov 13th, 2013We welome the New York music critic Djurdjija Vucinic. She reports on several performances at the renowned Le Poisson Rouge.
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Ear Say: Those Harmonizing Ladies II
The Sweetback Sisters, The Boxcar Lilies, The Carper Family
By: - Nov 11th, 2013I am attracted to any group, male, female or mixed that effectively use vocal harmonies. Only rarely in my limited attempts to sing along with others have I found myself able to find that sweet harmonizing position. I have great respect for those who seem to effortlessly slip in and out of it.
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Parsifal at Lyric Opera of Chicago
Groves, Youn, Hampson and Karanas Deliver
By: - Nov 10th, 2013John Caird and Johan Engels’ production of Parsifal at the Lyric Opera of Chicago is an unqualified success. A difficult and long opera is made accessible without violating the composer. Exiting the theater with the packed house over and over laudatory phrases were lofted: “Home run for Wagner.†“I can’t believe it was so long. I was rapt.†“Beautiful in every way.â€
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Baden Baden 1927 At Gotham Chamber Opera
Hindemith, Milhaud, Toch and Weill in One Acts
By: - Nov 06th, 2013The Gotham Chamber Opera, founded and enlivened over the years by conductor Neal Goren, offers terrific fare on a more intimate scale. Its concepts are often large and work both as opera and fine art. Gotham opened its fall season tackling all kinds of musical forms.
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Resonance Works Performs Verdi's Macbeth
Pittsburgh's Operatic Halloween Thrill
By: - Nov 02nd, 2013A new Pittsburgh-based company kicked off its inaugural season with the well-known Scottish blood bath. The reduced orchestra played with a lush round sound, supporting excellent native and regional singers whose voices carried easily in the Gothic music hall. A timeless setting added to the overall eerie effect of the piece, reminding us that the minds of mortals are ever susceptible to addictive avarice.
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A Thanks to Lou Reed
Punk Poet Rock Icon Dead at 71
By: - Oct 28th, 2013Personal remembrances of Rocker Lou Reed (1942-2013) whose influence on popular music and culture has been felt for over 40 years. Reed's trajectory was from pickup bands at Syracuse University to Andy Warhol's Factory parties to Boston's rock scene to the world.
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Riverside Blues & BBQ Festival - 2013
We Listened, Tasted, and Smelled the Smoke.
By: - Oct 21st, 2013It had a lot going in its favor not the least of which is a $5 ticket for three and a half hours of solid blues performances each day and an opportunity to sample a variety of BBQ. We make a point not to miss the annual Greenfield’s Green River Music Festival.
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Revival - A Novel by Scott Alarik
A Fable Of The Cambridge Folk Community
By: - Oct 20th, 2013Alarik's credentials are extensive and diverse. He has been a performer, a songwriter, has written folk music commentary for the Boston Globe and published an earlier collection of his writings, “Deep Community: Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground.†His renown as a chronicler of the folk scene leaves me green with envy.
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Otello at the Lyric Opera of Chicago
Triumvirate of Botha, Martinez and Struckmann Excels
By: - Oct 15th, 2013The Lyric revived a 2001 production by Sir Peter Hall, and it is masterful. Brought forward to the 19th century when the opera was composed, Shakespeare is tipped in the basic ‘public’ set which is shaped like the Globe Theater, a semi circle with three tiers of balconies. Action takes place on all levels and is a delight to the eye. The pageantry of opera opens as Otello returns home victorious through a wild storm of eleventh chords, woodwind lightning and ripping winds in the strings. The chorus prays for Otello’s safety.
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BU Fringe Festival: Nico Muhly's Dark Sisters
Mormon Polygamy as Subject
By: - Oct 13th, 2013Nico Muhly is the opera composer of the moment, getting a premiere at the Met later this month. Both his operas pick subjects "ripped from the headlines." His Dark Sisters was performed at the Boston University Fringe Festival
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Muti, Verdi, Chicago Symphony, Magnificent.
A Bang Up 200th Birthday Celebration
By: - Oct 11th, 2013Mario Zefferi, a tenor termed bel canto, pierced through the orchestra with every note he delivered. Singing through the mask, with a ping that contrasted with his partners on stage, his tone was perfectly beautiful. Verid’s own choice for this role was a tenor who had a beautiful voice, but was notably stupid. Zefferi in no ‘pumpkinhead.’
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Muti Magic with Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Tatiana Serjan a Revelation as Lady Macbeth
By: - Oct 07th, 2013Why do we need sets and costumes? Certainly when you hear a concert performance of Verdi's Macbeth led by Riccardo Muti, you could ask for nothing more. Great stage directors like Willy Decker and Sir David McVicar do not distract in their productions, but many modern directors do. Certainly this Macbeth completely satisfied with no props.
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EarSay On Stage
Sidi Touré, Beggar's Ride and The Boxcar Lillies
By: - Oct 07th, 2013An old friend of mine once noted, "You can always tell who in an audience was at a Pete Seeger concert for the first time." "You can?" I queried. "Sure," she said. "They are the ones who look annoyed when other audience members start to sing along with Pete."
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Boston Lyric Opera's New The Magic Flute
BLO Strips Work of Its Masonic Subtext
By: - Oct 07th, 2013Mozart's "The Magic Flute" has enchanting characters and intoxicating music. But it is often weighted down with its philosophical underpinnings. The BLO brings out its fairy tale elements to the delight of its audience.
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