By Tom Tracy Walking into the main gallery of the Palm Beach Photographic Centre this month might best be described as a large-scale Rorschach test designed to reveal something about your own Freudian mindscape. That’s because through the end of the year the Photographic Center on Clemetis Street is hosting Images of Science, an exhibit of 40 photos from scientific research … [Read more...]
Archives for December 2011
PB Opera opens 50th season with beautiful ‘Butterfly’
In the world of Madama Butterfly, it’s all about her, with the occasional supporting character coming in now and again to move the plot along. But Palm Beach Opera’s current presentation of Giacomo Puccini’s Japanese opera is noteworthy for the strength of its supporting cast overall, and with a fine performance at its center plus a tasteful, intelligent staging, this … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 16-18
Art: The Norton Museum of Art is currently showing a major exhibit of works by one of the most highly regarded British artists of our day, Jenny Saville. She’s best known for her work featuring female nudes, but many of her works are drawn from her studies of plastic surgery, generating pictures whose painterly strokes remind the viewer of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon. The … [Read more...]
Sondheim compiles second treasure trove of remarkable career
Fortunately for all concerned, Stephen Sondheim’s Look, I Made a Hat is not a treatise on the art of millinery. Instead, it is the sequel to Finishing the Hat, the pre-eminent American theater composer-lyricist’s compilation and consideration of his career, divided into two volumes and filled with nuggets of insight. Or, as he prefers to put it in his subtitle, “Collected … [Read more...]
MCB’s Program I electrifies at Kravis
Miami City Ballet opened its 26th season at the Kravis Center this weekend with a rousing performance of four diverse, contemporary works that ended with a standing ovation Friday night from a near-capacity crowd. The evening began with George Balanchine’s Square Dance. This high-energy, technically challenging ballet was perfectly danced: Jeanette Delgado was the … [Read more...]
‘Blackthorn’ rides tired nag into Cassidy revisionism
George Roy Hill’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a film that felt awfully new in its time and now feels as musty as mothballs, ended on an iconic freeze-frame of the titular bandits plunging into a hail of gunfire and their certain deaths: the outlaw criminals as tragic fatalists. This retelling of the real-life Cassidy story climaxed on the conventional wisdom of the … [Read more...]
A man, a plan, a railroad: Exhibit goes deep into Flagler’s dream
Ongoing at the Flagler Museum is a history lesson on passion and perseverance. And unlike boring history lessons, this one is told through work songs, candid photographs and rare historic film. First Train to Paradise: The Railroad that Went to Sea is just the beginning of a long celebration marking the 100th anniversary of the completion of Henry M. Flagler’s most ambitious … [Read more...]
Under Tebar, Palm Beach Symphony makes big strides
What a difference a year makes: Conductor Ramón Tebar has improved the quality of the Palm Beach Symphony by sheer force of will and good leadership. This happy band has jumped 10 notches on the Richter scale of music-making; it is unrecognizable from the orchestra we heard last year. At the opening concert of the season Wednesday night at the Society of the Four Arts, the … [Read more...]
New media proves strong draw at Art Miami
By Elaine Meier Special to Palm Beach ArtsPaper There was a completely different vibe to Art Miami, as compared to Art Basel. Even on the second day of Miami’s longest-running contemporary art fair, there was an energy, excitement and element of surprise not felt at Art Basel. When visitors thought they had seen it all, all they had to do was turn another corner to find … [Read more...]
Charming French whimsy, by way of Finnish auteur
As charming as it is preposterous, a French fable called Le Havre arrives this week by way of Finland, the home of writer-director Aki Kaurismäki, whose idiosyncratic style is evident throughout this tale of that current events topic -- illegal immigration. Le Havre, the industrial port city in Normandy plays a vital role in this story of a likeable freelance shoeshine guy, … [Read more...]