Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman dares you to look away. And it does so by never cutting. At least, that’s the way it appears — like one long, continuous, two-hour tracking shot somehow encompassing several days in the narrative, if not weeks. Jaws will drop early and often, especially among cinephiles in the audience, but Birdman isn’t Russian Ark: This visual feat was … [Read more...]
2014-15 arts preview: The season in opera
For opera companies, being the first house for a brand-new work is a standout way to elevate your cultural profile at home and abroad. And surely the biggest news in the coming season for the local opera scene will be the world premiere at Palm Beach Opera of a new American work, Enemies: A Love Story, with music by Ben Moore to a libretto by Nahma Sandrow, based on the Isaac … [Read more...]
‘I Origins’: Movie of ideas almost loses way in Hollywoodism
Mike Cahill and Brit Marling make science-fiction films that don’t feel at all removed from present day — or should we say prescient day. Another Earth, their 2011 debut, posited the discovery of another Earth-like planet, and its tortured protagonist enters a contest to fly their on a civilian spacecraft, in a project spearheaded by a millionaire entrepreneur. Two years … [Read more...]
Music roundup: Cuarteto Latinoamericano at Flagler; PB Symphony brings out brass
I first heard the Cuarteto Latinoamericano in 1984 making their New York City debut. They were managed by a friend I’d met years before at Tanglewood, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. My friend asked for a report and I was honestly able to say they had great promise, and that all their black shocks of Brylcreemed hair would certainly win over the ladies. Fast … [Read more...]
PBO’s ‘Macbeth,’ first cast: Chioldi, Boross impressive; Panikkar a discovery
Even though the Giuseppe Verdi of Macbeth is not the Verdi of Don Carlo or Otello, one hears the earlier score today with a shock of understanding why this composer’s work seized the ears of his contemporaries: It is bold, fierce and unrelentingly exciting. It helps if the performance in question of the opera does it justice, of course, and fortunately, Palm Beach Opera’s … [Read more...]
MCB opens first program in impeccable style
By Tara Mitton Catao Miami City Ballet’s Friday evening program began with George Balanchine’s Ballo Della Regina. Within just a few seconds, it was clear that this was a perfect opener to not only this evening’s program and the first of four programs to be presented at the Kravis, but also to the first season that is fully under the leadership and vision of Artistic Director … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: April 26-28
Theater: OK, procrastinators, this is the final weekend to catch the first-rate Palm Beach Dramaworks production of Eugene Ionesco’s Exit the King, the great absurdist playwright’s comic meditation on death. In it, the king of a shabby, rundown realm learns that he has only 90 minutes left to live ― not coincidentally the lengths of this one-act play ― so he takes stock of his … [Read more...]
First Tortuga Festival pledges ‘music and meaning’
Four years in the making, the Tortuga Music Festival lands on Fort Lauderdale Beach this weekend, bringing a strong lineup of country and rock music stars, including multi-platinum artist Kenny Chesney, platinum-selling country music artist Eric Church, Lynyrd Skynyrd and alt-folk rock quintet Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, fresh off their European tour. Organized by Rock the … [Read more...]
Aggressive Vivaldi, joyful Bach at Firebird Chamber
Over the course of its 11 years, the Seraphic Fire organization has returned several times to the music of J.S. Bach: The Mass in B minor, the St. John Passion, the six Motets, the Brandenburg Concertos. Although the subject of its spinoff chamber group’s most recent concert is nominally Vivaldi, one of the Bach cantatas, Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen (BWV 51), plays just as … [Read more...]
The Boynton Beach Arts District: From machinery street to center of culture
By Chloe Elder Auto shops and heavy machinery might not be the first thing you think of as a backdrop for artwork. But the artists of the Boynton Beach Arts District have turned Industrial Avenue into just that. The arts district lies inconspicuously off Boynton Beach Boulevard at 422 Industrial Ave. The district houses a series of warehouses that function as galleries, … [Read more...]