By Sandra Schulman An unexpected near-death experience during the early days of the pandemic has yielded a remarkable series of portraits, drawn by the patient. Donald Farnsworth, an artist who owns a fine art studio that makes vintage paper from Italian Renaissance era techniques, was traveling in Italy in 2022, when he came down with a life-threatening case of COVID-19. … [Read more...]
PB Opera tops itself with stellar ‘Figaro,’ jewel of the season
By Márcio Bezerra Palm Beach Opera closed its 2025 season with a outstanding production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. Even by the higher standards set by the company since the pandemic, this one was exceptional, and for many reasons. First produced in 1786, The Marriage of Figaro, as it is known in English, is not only a masterwork in the operatic … [Read more...]
South Florida Symphony, chorus deliver poignant Mozart Requiem
By Robert Croan Contrary to legend, and to Peter Shaffer’s iconic play Amadeus (along with the movie that followed), Italian composer Antonio Salieri did not murder Mozart — nor did he attempt to steal or to take credit for the composition of Mozart’s final, uncompleted Requiem (K. 622). The work was in fact commissioned by a wealthy nobleman, a Count Franz von Walsegg, … [Read more...]
Botanical beauty: The floating flowers of Rory McEwen
By Sandra Schulman Adrift in space, purple tulips waft in whiteness, red roses gleam in unseen sunshine, a red pepper shines with ripeness. These exquisitely painted flora by Rory McEwen are the subject of a current show at The Society of the Four Arts, Rory McEwen: A New Perspective on Nature, which runs through March 30 in the Esther B. O’Keeffe Building. Presented … [Read more...]
London Symphony, violinist Jansen spectacular in Bernstein, Mahler
By Márcio Bezerra This writer had not had to park on the top floor of the garage of the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts for at least the past 10 years! After the big dip in attendance for classical music after the pandemic, it looks as audiences have come back to levels even higher than before the great recession. Thus, one should not feel annoyed, but rather … [Read more...]
Cellist Drachman superb in Brahms, Beethoven at FilAm
By Robert Croan An excellent series that has garnered too little attention is FilAm Music Foundation’s Chamber Music@ Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, at The Community Church on Bougainvillea Drive. The most recent event, on Feb. 22, was a superb recital by cellist Evan Drachman and pianist Victor Santiago Asunción, who is also FilAm’s founder and director. Drachman happens to be … [Read more...]
‘Traviata’ again proves a winner for Palm Beach Opera
By Márcio Bezerra It is always a special occasion when Palm Beach Opera stages the work that it started it all: Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata. Since the company’s initial season in 1961, Verdi’s masterpiece has received a variety of treatments, from traditional to modernistic (anyone remember the mirrored stage?) with varied degrees of success. In its latest production, … [Read more...]
FGO’s ‘L’elisir’ nothing special, but fully satisfying
By Robert Croan After starting her tenure as Florida Grand Opera’s general director with a spectacular avant-garde, high-tech staging of Mozart’s The Magic Flute in November 2024, Maria Todaro followed with a traditional, well-sung if visually uneventful production of Gaetano Donizetti’s melodious, undemanding old chestnut, L’elisir d’amore (The Elixir of Love) — seen Feb. … [Read more...]
Met Opera’s Lindemann Artists impress at Four Arts concert
By Márcio Bezerra The future looks (or, rather, sounds) bright, at least in the operatic field. That is the conclusion one would draw after the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Artists in Concert were heard at The Society of the Four Arts this past Sunday. Created in 1980, The Lindemann is the country’s (and perhaps the world’s) most prestigious young artist program in opera. … [Read more...]
Strauss-Berlioz program proves electric at South Florida SO
By Robert Croan Placing the works of the Frenchman Hector Berlioz (1803-69) and the German Richard Strauss (1864-1949) side by side, as the South Florida Symphony Orchestra did in this season’s third Masterworks concert (seen Feb. 12 at The Parker), makes good sense, although the two composers were stylistically and geographically disparate, and only barely overlapped in … [Read more...]