Editor’s note: Here are late reviews from three concerts held earlier this month. Adaskin String Trio (Jan. 10, Flagler Museum) The Adaskin String Trio did something at its Flagler Museum concert that only the better chamber groups do: Play unusual, rarely heard material with the same kind of commitment they expend on the standards. In its program Feb. 10 at the … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2012
Artist Saville makes beauty out of flesh: the rawer, the better
A survey of British painter Jenny Saville is on view at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach until March 4. Included in the exhibit are 15 of the artist’s large-scale oil paintings and 15 of her drawings. This is the artist’s first solo in a museum in the United States, though she did have a one-woman gallery exhibit at the Gagosian Gallery in 1999. Other than this, … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 27-29
Theater: The theater event of the weekend is the debut of Parade Productions, a new company led by artistic director Kim St. Leon, which kicks off with Donald Margulies’ semi-autobiographical play Brooklyn Boy, at the Studio at Mizner Park, a flexible configuration playhouse on the site of the former International Museum of Cartoon Art. Jewish identity is often at the heart of … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Poetry Festival again inspires versifiers from all over
Outside the Crest Theatre in Delray Beach’s Old School Square, Cara Nusinov posed for a photograph by the sculpture she designed to pay homage to poetry. “Art makes poetry touchable,” she said as she stood by the Polka Dot Poetry Peacock, which she created for an art-in-public-spaces project in Coconut Grove. “I imagine people enjoying the poems affixed to the peacock and … [Read more...]
Logic goes out the window, but ‘Ledge’ still thrills
Like Snakes on a Plane, Man on a Ledge is a bluntly up-front title: a subject and a predicate, reducing the picture to the essence of its poster art. I’m all for enigmatic titles, but this approach has its allure. Why are there snakes on a plane? And why is that man on that ledge? In Asger Leth’s debut feature, the man is Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington), a former cop, apparent … [Read more...]
‘Artist’ Cinderella story continues into Oscar nominations
OK, Academy Awards presenters, start practicing pronouncing the name Michel Hazanavicius. Who says there are no surprises anymore in the movie industry? If anyone had predicted a year ago that a black-and-white, virtually silent film without name stars would be released in 2011, earn 10 Oscar nominations including best picture and be the favorite to win, that person would be … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: Life as a wrestling ring, or a cabaret, old chum
At one end of Palm Beach County, at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, we are told that “Life is a cabaret, old chum.” At the other end, at Boca Raton’s Caldwell Theatre, it turns out that life is actually more like professional wrestling. The latter news flash comes from Kristoffer Diaz’s The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist that examines the scripted … [Read more...]
FGO production makes a strong case for ‘La Rondine’
The soprano who created the role of Magda in Giacomo Puccini’s La Rondine said late in life that the composer died “with the wound of ‘Rondine’ in his heart,” having never gotten over the opera’s mixed record of success and failure. In its first-ever mounting of the bittersweet opera Puccini wrote for a Viennese commission, Florida Grand Opera has taken an important step … [Read more...]
Ballet Memphis show celebrates togetherness
If it’s true, as Sartre said, that Hell is other people, it isn’t a message that will find much support at Ballet Memphis. The dance company, now celebrating its 25th year, brought four dances to the Duncan Theatre on Friday night in the first of two performances (the show is repeated tonight). Twelve members of the 23-person troupe from the blues capital were on stage for a … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 20-22
Art: The Norton Museum turns to the world of glassmaking this week, having opened three studio glass programs Wednesday. The centerpiece is an installation called One and Others, created by the Wisconsin-based artist Beth Lipman. It’s a large piece that evokes Old Master still lifes from the museum’s collections, and is on view in its European galleries. The museum also is … [Read more...]