Music: Tonight at the Festival of the Arts Boca, the much-loved Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa, who’s been an area favorite for years, joins the New World Symphony for the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (Op. 45) of Rachmaninov, and doubtless she’ll do an encore, too. But the concert, which will be led by Toronto Symphony director Peter Oundjian, also contains a rarely … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: March 8-10
Theater: Although it won the 2002 Best Musical Tony Award, the stage version of Thoroughly Modern Millie is not a very sturdy show. Fortunately, no one told the cast at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, headed by a young dynamo named Laurie Veldheer, who has a belter’s lungs and a snappy way with a tap dance. She plays the ambitious girl from the Midwest who arrives in New York in … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: March 1-3
Film: The vote totals for the Academy Awards are never released, but it is safe to say that Michael Haneke’s Amour from Austria won the foreign language film category by a landslide, nominated as it was for best picture as well. And the movie is now out in area theaters, a rare opportunity to see the winner on a big screen. It is a tough film to sit through, especially for … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Feb. 23-24
Film: A new film based on a magic realism-infused novel by Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima, focuses on a small boy, Antonio (Luke Ganalon), who is introduced to the spirit world by his grandmother, Ultima (Miriam Colon), who is sort of a witch doctor, a conjurer of spells and an alternative healer. The compelling, if disorienting film is directed by Carl Franklin, probably best … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Feb. 15-17
Music: An honest-to-goodness vocal star is in town this week, and fans of Rossini’s comic operas will want to be on hand to hear her, when Vivica Genaux takes the role of Angelina, aka Cinderella, in the Italian master’s 1817 opera La Cenerentola. Genaux, who won early recognition in Palm Beach Opera’s vocal competitions nearly 20 years ago, has become one of the most important … [Read more...]
Weekend picks: Feb. 9-10
Theater: If, like me, you were floored by Maureen Anderman in Palm Beach Dramaworks’ A Delicate Balance, you will not need much coaxing to see her in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Doubt: A Parable, John Patrick Shanley’s clash of wills between a suspicious nun and an affable priest (Jim Ballard) who she is convinced behaved inappropriately with a 12-year-old male student. And this … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks, Feb. 1-3
Art: High fashion is on display at the Boca Museum of Art with Impact: 50 Years of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. The exhibition, which was spearheaded by Diane von Furstenberg, is the first museum exhibition to celebrate the artistry of American fashion designers on the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Almost 600 designers have been members of the council … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 12-13, 2013
Music: Pianists and lovers of Bach are in a high state of excitement over Sunday afternoon’s concert at the Arsht Center’s Knight Concert Hall featuring the great American pianist Simone Dinnerstein in a complete, uninterrupted performance of the Goldberg Variations. This is the work – a tremendously impressive display of compositional ingenuity ― that helped make Dinnerstein’s … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 5-6, 2013
Film: Surely one of the best films of 2012 and a shoo-in for Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress is Zero Dark Thirty, the tense, suspenseful, well-researched and somewhat conjectural tale of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. It comes from filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow ― the only woman to win an Oscar for feature direction ― and screenwriter Mark … [Read more...]
Weekend picks: Dec. 22-24
Theater: Finally, some good news. The Kravis Center and the stagehands’ union have come to an agreement which will allow the remainder of the three-week run of Jersey Boys to proceed, after four performances had been canceled. The long-running Tony-winning musical biography tells the surprisingly involving story of the rise to fame of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and … [Read more...]