By Dale King What’s New Pussycat? The Soundtrack of an Era is about to finish its second run in less than two years at the Broward Stage Door Theatre. Created by Broadway-trained director Michael Leeds and collaborator/choreographer Kevin Black in the manner of a jukebox musical, the show pulls together about 50 songs — full tunes and medley versions — and segments them into … [Read more...]
Archives for March 2016
Art Boca Raton unveils some gems amid the dross, overcrowding
Hummingbirds on Yellow, by Laura Tan. By Myles Ludwig Although there was more than sufficient visual jokery, snap, crackle, pop and cupcake conceptualism on display at Art Boca Raton to jolt even the most somnolent, there was just enough original work to capture my interest and provide a frisson of satisfaction. ArtBoca was abuzz at noon on Saturday when I arrived at the … [Read more...]
PBO’s ‘Ariadne,’ ‘B’ cast: Wagner, Young Artists stand out
Jeffrey Hartman and Amber Wagner in Ariadne auf Naxos. Palm Beach Opera’s last opera this season, Ariadne auf Naxos, was a singing triumph. The company brought together some of the freshest and best voices — all 16 of them — that ply their trade in the opera world today. I heard the second-cast stars on Saturday evening, sitting among a very new but appreciative audience. … [Read more...]
PBO’s ‘Ariadne’; ‘A’ cast: Top-to-bottom vocal strength lifts Strauss confection
Wendy Bryn Harmer and Brian Jagde in Ariadne auf Naxos. The audience response Sunday afternoon to Palm Beach Opera’s final presentation of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos wasn’t the kind of enthusiastic ovation a more familiar opera from the Italian repertory would have won. But if they weren’t crazy about the opera itself, the troupe deserved all the warm approbation … [Read more...]
Amernet Quartet offers rare (Michael) Haydn at Chameleon
By Robert Croan Pity poor Michael Haydn! Posterity has not treated him kindly. A respected composer in his time, he has suffered from the fame of his older brother, Franz Joseph, as well as comparisons with his younger contemporary Mozart. Michael Haydn’s best-known symphony found its way into the Köchel catalogue of Mozart’s works as Symphony No. 37 because Mozart happened … [Read more...]
Impressive Berlioz, Ravel at Lynn Philharmonia’s fifth
Guillermo Figueroa directed the largest bicentenary celebration in the United States of the work of Hector Berlioz back in 2003 when he was director of the New Mexico Symphony. Saturday night, he brought his regard for his favorite composer to a concert by his current charges, the Lynn Philharmonia Orchestra, which he led in an all-French program at the Wold Center for the … [Read more...]
Glorious music-making from PB Symphony at Mar-a-Lago
Conductor Ramón Tebar has done it again. He has taken the enlarged Palm Beach Symphony of 75 players to new heights of perfection, drawing a record audience that filled Donald Trump’s glorious wedding hall at Mar-a-Lago on March 16, the day after he won the Florida Republican primary. Perhaps many were curiosity-seekers. No matter, the great and the good were augmented by the … [Read more...]
Powerful visions from women modernists at the Norton
Red Flower (1919), by Georgia O’Keeffe. By April Klimley The Norton’s exhibition of Four Women Modernists in New York is full of surprises. Of course, many people will visit it to see Georgia O’Keeffe’s work, especially her Jack-in-the-Pulpit series. But you are in for an additional treat at the exhibition when you examine the work of three other New York women modernists … [Read more...]
Guitar hero Satriani thrills Parker Playhouse crowd
As he approaches his 60th birthday this summer, instrumental rock guitar hero Joe Satriani appears to be trying not to become a nostalgia act via his top-selling breakthrough release, Surfing With the Alien, from 1987. Yet he’s dipping his toe in that water on his current From Surfing to Shockwave tour by playing tunes from that time-tested gem through his latest CD, last … [Read more...]
Chilling ‘Remember’ marks Egoyan’s return to masterly form
Perhaps more than anything, Atom Egoyan’s Remember is a visual thrift shop of bespoke signs and symbols from film and pulp-fiction lore. A letter, delivered clandestinely, containing dangerous instructions. A mysterious train ticket and a cache of money. A Glock 9-mm. revolver. Nazi paraphernalia. At least one, if not many, stolen identities. A quest to uncover the truth. … [Read more...]