Aside from Claudio Monteverdi’s operas, Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, which premiered in Vienna in 1762, is the earliest opera in regular repertory. Its abundance of graceful melody, compelling story and absence of the stiffness of the prevailing opera seria put it there, and not incidentally so did its use of orchestral accompaniment in the recitatives … [Read more...]
Archives for March 2018
Quatuor Ébène’s jazz not as strong as its Haydn, Fauré
By Dennis D. Rooney Appearing March 11 under the auspices of the Society of the Four Arts , the four French players known as Quatuor Ébène presented a bifurcated program. The first half was wholly traditional: Franz Joseph Haydn’s Quartet in D minor (Op. 72, No. 2) and Gabriel Fauré’s late Quartet (in E minor, Op. 121). The second half was devoted to eight jazz pieces. … [Read more...]
Henschel Quartet plays seamless Mozart, Debussy at Flagler
By Dennis D. Rooney The Henschel Quartet is named for three of the group’s original members who, with cellist Mathias Beyer-Karlhøj, founded it in 1994. Two of the Henschel siblings remain, first violinist Christoph and violist Monika. Second violinist Catalin Desaga joined them in 2016. Christoph Henschel plays a 1721 Stradivarius; Desaga’s violin is by Jan Bobak, a … [Read more...]
‘Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun?’: A harrowing look at a racist cold case
In October of 1946, a white, racist Alabama shop owner named S.E. Branch fatally shot a black man named Bill Spann in the rural town of Dothan, 18 miles from the Florida line. He was charged with first-degree murder but did not serve time. Scant information about this crime exists outside of Spann’s death certificate, but documentary filmmaker Travis Wilkerson, who is S.E. … [Read more...]
Expert Maltz cast delivers a strong ‘South Pacific’
Composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II have mistakenly acquired a reputation for sentimental musicals, yet this is the team that gave up shows about domestic abuse (Carousel), cross-cultural conflict (The King and I), the rise of Nazism (The Sound of Music) and racial prejudice (South Pacific). Perhaps their misguided reputation stems from the … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: March 17-18
Film: Love, Simon is a fairly conventional coming-of-age story about a high school senior, except that he is unapologetically gay and – once he comes out to them – his friends and family are uniformly supportive of his sexual orientation. That makes for a lack of dramatic conflict, but still the film is surely a first by a major studio (Fox 2000). The only pushback comes from a … [Read more...]
The eternal beauty of Gluck’s ‘Orfeo’
By Robert Croan Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice is all things to all people. Prior to the great Baroque revival of the mid-20th century, it was the oldest opera in standard repertory. Since its world premiere in Vienna in 1762, the iconic work has been revised, reworked and tampered with so many times that the work as performed from one opera house to another … [Read more...]
‘One Line Drawn’ marks exciting departure for MCB
When the curtain opened for Miami City Ballet’s world premiere of One Line Drawn at the Kravis Center on March 2, we immediately knew we were in for a complete change-up. There would be no tutus here. With what seemed to resemble five sets of blaring headlights (stacked on top of each other) shining directly in our eyes, the dancers entered – first one, then another and … [Read more...]
Score, singing rescue Wick’s ‘Brigadoon’ from missteps
Long before lyricist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe cemented their places as musical theater icons with My Fair Lady and Camelot, the scored their first Broadway hit with an original romantic fable, Brigadoon. Although it ran a respectable 581 performances in the 1947-48 season, it has since been overshadowed by the songwriting team’s other shows and is … [Read more...]
Mizner Park’s symphony of outside noise muffles two fine soloists
By Dennis D. Rooney A concert featuring two young soloists with the Symphonia Boca Raton that took place in the closing days of this year’s Festival of the Arts Boca was themed “Russian Festival,” but might better have been styled “Festival of Extraneous Noises.” The Count de Hoernle Amphitheater is not a congenial environment for the performance of classical music. … [Read more...]