Susan Hall
Bio:
Recent Articles:
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Irishtown at the Irish Rep Front Page
Ever Wondered What Makes an Irish Play
By: - May 08th, 2025Irishtown is currently playing at the Irish Repertory Theatre in New York through May 25th. Nicola Murphy Dubey directs.
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The Engish Concert at Carnegie Hall Front Page
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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Handel in Hudson Front Page
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 Front Page
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 Front Page
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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L.A. Rebellion Plays at Lincoln Center Front Page
A Visceral Picture of Black Life Brought to Film by Black Artists
By: - Apr 23rd, 2025In 1968, UCLA launched a groundbreaking initiative to increase enrollment of Black, Latino, Native American, and Asian film students. Though the program ended in 1973, it had already admitted a significant number of students of color, many of whom later attracted others to UCLA. This initiative produced a remarkable group of Black filmmakers. Film at Lincoln Center celebrates this legacy.
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Cafe Resistance at Theater for the New City Front Page
Robert Monticello Play Directed by Lissa Moira
By: - Apr 14th, 2025Cafe Resistance, a new play by Robert Monticello, and directed by Lissa Moira, is playing at Theater for the New City through April 27th. Set in Paris in 1940 as the Germans enter to occupy the city, a bordello is the perfect place to watch all the parties in action.
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Erin Morley Enchants at Park Avenue Armory Front Page
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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Streetcar Named Desire at BAM Front Page
The Williams' Language Falls Flat
By: - Apr 09th, 2025The Brooklyn Academy of Music recently presented A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. Directed by Rebecca Frecknall and featuring a set by Madeleine Girling, this production, which was a smash hit in London, also made a strong impression at BAM.
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Kirill Petrenko DIscusses Being Jewish Front Page
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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Directors New Films at Lincoln Center and MOMA Front Page
What Is the Future of FIlm?
By: - Mar 27th, 2025New Directors/New Films runs at MOMA and Film at Lincoln Center from April 2 to 13.
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La Jolla Playhouse Presents the New Hamilton Front Page
3 Summers of Lincoln Soars
By: - Mar 24th, 20253 Summers of Lincoln is a captivating production blending historical and contemporary dance and music to explore the meetings between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass during the American Civil War. Set across three summers—1862, 1863, and 1864—the play dramatizes Lincoln's leadership struggle and Douglass’ unwavering commitment to abolition.
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Cleveland Orchestra Offers Defiant Hope at Carnegie Front Page
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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Last Call Sizzles at New World Stages Front Page
Bernstin and Von Karajan Wrestle at the Sacher Hotel in Vienna
By: - Mar 16th, 2025You'd never know that Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan skied together. Their meeting at the Sacher Hotel in Vienna did take place and is compellingly dramatized in a new play, Last Call.
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Victoria Bond Presents the Jack Quartet Front Page
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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Koln 75, the Movie, Premieres in Berlin Film
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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Dalia Stasveska Debuts at the Berlin Philharmonic Front Page
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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Blue Moon in a Sunny Berlin Front Page
Kaplow, Linklater, and Hawke Team with Lorenz Hart
By: - Feb 25th, 2025For the screening of 240 films at its international berlinale, Berlin was sunny, sometimes crisply cold and at others, almost balmy. Perhaps because it is under the big sky, this city is a perfect place to see films in which the artists take their time, and let character and story emerge paced to the subject.
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Marin Alsop Debuts with the Berlin Phil Front Page
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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Berin Film Festival Begins Front Page
Potsdamer Platz is Command Central
By: - Feb 15th, 2025Potsdamer Platz is command central for the Berlin Film Festival. While Babelsberger Studios, the oldest large-scale studio in the world, is outside Berlin, Potsdamer Platz, is near the center of the city. It sits between the home of the Berlin Philharmonic and New National Gallery, the only building Mies Van der Rohe designed in Europe after he emigrated from the continent.
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Berlin Film Festival 2025 Opens Front Page
Tilda Swinton Gets an Honorary Golden Bear Hug
By: - Feb 13th, 2025The Berlin Film Festival opens with an honorary Golden Bear Award for actress Tilda Swinton and a new film by Tom Tykwer,
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Phil Kline Surprises with a Song Cycle Front Page
Meet the Ghost of Isabella Stewart Gardner
By: - Feb 12th, 2025On Sunday, February 23 at 1:30 p.m., the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum presents the world premiere of ghost story, a song cycle commissioned from composer/lyricist Phil Kline. It’s inspired by the life and times of Isabella Stewart Gardner.
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Film at Lincoln Center Conjures Nosferatu Front Page
Films That Inspired Robert Eggers
By: - Feb 05th, 2025Where did Dracula, aka Count Orlok and Vlad the Impaler, a commanding figure of contemporary culture across the globe, come from? Film at Lincoln Center answers this question.
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Conrad Tao Alights in Carnegie Hall Front Page
Premier Keyboard Artist Performs Debussy and His Own Works
By: - Jan 30th, 2025Conrad Tao takes our inner ear on new journeys in a program at Carnegie Hall on January 31. The first notes we’ll hear are often said to be Claude Debussy making fun of Carl Czerny. Czerny’s exercises are of course where most of us begin our piano journeys. Thumping away at scales, we don’t learn to appreciate the sounds that can emerge from the instrument. We don’t coax. We hammer. Tao will coax sound from piano keys and Lumatone hexagons.
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Frederick Wiseman at Lincoln Center Front Page
An American Institution Celebrated
By: - Jan 19th, 2025Film at Lincoln Center is presenting “Frederick Wiseman: An American Institution,” a retrospective featuring an extensive selection of films spanning decades of the filmmaker’s prolific career, all newly restored in 4K. Eleven of Wiseman’s films have been selected for the New York Film Festival since 1967. This series celebrates the long-standing relationship between FLC and this documentary filmmaker. The series will be presented from January 31 through March 5, 2025.
