By Hap Erstein Although based on a play from 1926, that was adapted into a musical in 1975, Chicago “just feels like it was written five minutes ago, the way that it examines our culture and the cult of celebrity in our country.” So says Denis Jones, a veteran of the concert-like revival that continues in New York after 23 years, the longest-running American … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2020
Soprano returns to familiar turmoil for FGO’s ‘Butterfly’
By Robert Croan Puccini’s Madama Butterfly is one of the most popular operas in today’s repertory. It wasn’t always. The world premiere at Milan’s La Scala Opera, on Feb. 7, 1904, was met with hissing and boos, and had to be withdrawn after a single performance. In May of that year, for a production in Brescia, Puccini made some alterations, dividing the 90-minute Act 2 … [Read more...]
Poetry Festival salutes the art of saying the unsayable
By Christina Wood Angela Narciso Torres admits she wrote some pretty bad poetry when she was a kid. Unlike countless other teens pouring out their hearts or communing with their angst in late night writing sessions, however, Torres returned to poetry later in life. She was living in New York with a husband and kids of her own, when she decided to sign up for a creative … [Read more...]
Ying Quartet brings powerful Schubert to Flagler
The music of Franz Schubert is not an unknown quantity (except for the operas), but a good group of musicians can always bring something special to it that we might not have encountered before. Tuesday night at the Flagler Museum, the Ying Quartet, a veteran string foursome founded in Chicago more than 30 years ago, programmed two of Schubert’s late quartets on the first … [Read more...]
‘Invisible Life’: Sisters are fighting it for themselves
Set primarily in 1950s Rio de Janeiro, The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão is a film of dew and perspiration, of longing and pheromones. The heat, torrid and constant, causes everything to sweat, from people to the glasses they drink from. The movie practically glistens with their labor of everyday survival. When Guida Gusmão (Julia Stockler), young and rebellious sister … [Read more...]
Appreciation: Jerry Herman, proudly old-fashioned man of the theater
In describing Broadway composer-lyricist Jerry Herman, who died Dec. 26 in Miami of pulmonary complications at the age of 88, most use the terms “optimist” and “old-fashioned.” And throughout his long, illustrious, lucrative career, he embraced both labels. As he commented to me back in 1985, as his final mega-hit show, La Cage aux Folles, was beginning its victory lap … [Read more...]
Grace Potter tears up Revolution Live, for old fans and new
Singer, songwriter, guitarist and keyboardist Grace Potter gracefully prowled the stage during her sold-out show at Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday, displaying the soaring vocal range and instrumental prowess necessary to bear comparisons to female-fueled pop/rock forebearers like Heart, the Pretenders, and Fleetwood Mac. Potter’s band included two female … [Read more...]
Second Elmar Oliveira Violin Competition gets underway
By Dale King Elmar Oliveira says he feels “incredibly fortunate to have had a really terrific career” as a master of the violin, performing with talented individuals and orchestras and capturing awards around the globe. To this day, he remains the only American to win the Gold Medal at Moscow’s Tchaikovsky International Competition, which he did in 1978. “As part of … [Read more...]
‘Joker’ gets last laugh with Academy nods
Speaking of jokes and jokers, did you hear the one about the comic book movie with a clownish, homicidal leading character that unexpectedly landed at the top of the Oscar nominations list this morning with 11 mentions? Joker, which scored nominations for best picture, director, actor, adapted screenplay and in seven other categories, becomes only the second comic book … [Read more...]
At Modern + Contemporary, looking for subtlety amid the anger
By Myles Ludwig If you’re looking for art that fits the temper of the times, you’d find it under the tent at the Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary Art Fair in West Palm Beach. The collection of some 70 galleries there are, for the most part, are presenting work that is angry, confrontational, prickly, howling, assaulting, bristling with non-directional outrage to the point … [Read more...]