Opera: All eyes will be on the Kravis Center tonight as a new American opera makes its official debut, a milestone in South Florida arts history. Ben Moore’s Enemies, A Love Story, based on a novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer, features a young cast and a score rich with the melodic power that has made Moore’s music a favorite recital item for singers such as Deborah Voigt. Set in … [Read more...]
Archives for February 2015
Stunning ‘Ragtime’ at Playhouse already show to beat for 2015
Having already tackled and triumphed with such mega-musicals as Les Misérables and Miss Saigon, Coral Gables Actors’ Playhouse could hardly be accused of avoiding a challenge. Still, you would be excused if you had doubts that the Miracle Mile company could pull off the towering, demanding Ragtime, arguably the finest stage musical of the past 20 years. But succeed director … [Read more...]
Community theater: FAU delivers riveting ‘Holy Ghosts’
By Dale King Student dramatists at Florida Atlantic University are always finding plays that feature such bizarre themes and characters that they’re unlikely to end up on the stages of mainstream theatrical venues. So it is with Holy Ghosts, a production centering on mankind’s struggle to balance the need for religious tolerance with our strong inclination to reject faiths … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire, Sebastians do Papa Haydn proud
By Robert Croan Performing in three South Florida venues on successive evenings last weekend, Miami-based chamber choir Seraphic Fire joined with New York instrumental ensemble The Sebastians in a first-rate tribute to composer Franz Joseph Haydn: two of his late choral works, with a delightful middle-period symphony felicitously sandwiched in between. To most classical … [Read more...]
Community theater: Sharp cast gives ‘Other People’s Money’ grit, tension at Delray Playhouse
By Dale King Other People’s Money is a gritty drama, a modern-day tale of greed and financial seduction with just a smidgen of mirth. The 1989 play by Jerry Sterner attracted sold-out crowds to the Delray Beach Playhouse through most of its three-week run, which ended Sunday. The production focuses on the planned hostile takeover of a long-established, but out-of-date, … [Read more...]
Paul Taylor at Duncan: The renegade still astonishes
By Tara Mitton Catao It was only a short 13 months ago that the Paul Taylor Dance Company was here at the Duncan Theatre performing the iconic modern dance choreographer’s trademark athletic dances. They were revving up for a major season in New York at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater. During the three-week season, a vast variety of programs were to showcase Taylor’s … [Read more...]
Intriguing new work and stellar Strauss at ACO
The Atlantic Classical Orchestra’s concert Tuesday in Palm Beach Gardens featured four works, one a world premiere, conducted by Stewart Robertson, who will retire after this season. Robertson opened this concert with a rarely heard Schubert overture, Die Freunde von Salamanka (D. 326), described in the beautifully prepared program as a singspiel, a German opera with spoken … [Read more...]
Superb Nielsen, dazzling soloist highlights for Danish orchestra
It was a night of rising stars and a visit from some terrific out-of-town guests, and one of the biggest beneficiaries was an underrated great composer. The Danish National Symphony Orchestra came to Miami’s Knight Concert Hall on Saturday night in the middle of its American tour, bringing the young Australian violinist Ray Chen and the Romanian conductor Cristian Măcelaru … [Read more...]
Violinist Johnson brings the blues — successfully — into his parlor
Violinist Gareth Johnson creatively started his downstairs “Parlor Series” concerts last summer after moving into a two-story condo just west of the downtown area of Lake Worth. With a master’s degree from the Lynn Conservatory of Music in Boca Raton, the 29-year-old is often paired with fellow classical musicians in the intimate, 40-seat room — his Jan. 18 presentation … [Read more...]
‘Human Capital’ finds a thriller in the heart of the rot
Italian writer-director Paolo Virzi adapted an unusual source material for his latest film, the Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film submission Human Capital. It’s based on an American neo-noir of the same name by Stephen Amidon, its cruel, suburban-set machinations of fate and avarice reimagined in Brianza, an upper-class enclave north of Milan. It’s here that its … [Read more...]