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...]
Weekend arts picks: Feb. 6-8
Film: One of the usual complaints about the Academy Awards is that the nominated short subjects were rarely available to be seen, making office pools too much of a guessing game. But now, all 10 of them – live action and animated – have been assembled for commercial viewing, this week at the Mos’Art Theatre in Lake Park and the Stonzek Studio in Lake Worth. Of the live action … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 30-Feb. 1
Theater: The musicals of Frank Wildhorn (Jekyll & Hyde, The Scarlet Pimpernel) are usually over the top with bombast and power anthems, but with Bonnie & Clyde, he seems to have learned how to tailor his music to fit the situation and characters. Of course, the story revolves around a pair of lovestruck petty bank robbers who become folk heroes during the Depression, played … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 23-25
Theater: Playwright Lauren Gunderson wrote the redneck comedy Exit, Pursued by a Bear that Theatre at Arts Garage produced a couple of season ago, but try not to hold that against her. She is back with a much smarter script, I and You, about a couple of high school teens who meet over an English class assignment, and as with many formulaic romantic comedies, they banter and … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 16-18
Theater: The Wick Theatre in Boca Raton does not go in for fresh directorial concepts in its musicals like the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, but it has recently taken to injecting Broadway veterans into its productions, like Walter Charles and Lee Roy Reams as nightclub owner Georges and his gay partner and drag queen headliner Albin in La Cage aux Folles. That is reason enough to see … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 19-21
Music: The Symphonia Boca Raton has a busy season ahead of it, and it begins tonight and this weekend with three performances of Baroque music led by David Kim, concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra. He’ll lead a performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on a program that also includes the Double Violin Concerto of Bach (with violinist Mei Mei Luo) and the Christmas Concerto … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 13-14
Music: Time was when December meant the first opera of the season in West Palm Beach, but while those days have retreated into the past, that doesn’t mean the month goes by without Palm Beach Opera. This afternoon, the company presents its second free Waterfront Concert at the Meyer Amphiteatre in downtown West Palm Beach, with a full orchestra, singers and chorus. Tenor James … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 5-7
Theater: You’ve already seen Fiddler on the Roof more times than you can recall, right? And if you’re like me, you love the show, but wish that its original director-choreographer, the late Jerome Robbins, would loosen the reins and allow other stagings. If so, then the Maltz Jupiter Theatre has a production you should not miss. Marcia Milgrom Dodge, whose Hello, Dolly! and The … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 22-23
Dance: Sergei Prokofiev went through a great deal of trouble over Romeo and Juliet, and originally wrote it with a happy ending in which the star-cross’d lovers survive and dance off into the sunset. But the composer’s Soviet overlords didn’t think much of that idea, and forced him to reinstate Shakespeare’s original tragic outcome. Whatever the ending, he created a matchless … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 15-16
Theater: Chita Rivera has been a Broadway star for the past 60 years, originating roles in such shows as West Side Story, Bye Bye Birdie and Chicago, as well as winning Tony Awards for The Rink and Kiss of the Spider Woman. Tonight, she will appear at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre in a one-woman retrospective of these musicals, singing numbers from them and kicking up her heels, … [Read more...]