The 1941 entrance of the Norton Museum of Art. WEST PALM BEACH — The Norton Museum of Art, which has been closed since May 30 to prepare for a three-year construction project, will reopen Tuesday, with admission free until late 2018. The Norton is undergoing a major overhaul and expansion under the direction of the eminent British architect Norman Foster. The museum’s … [Read more...]
FGO’s ‘Pasquale’ zany fun, but concept crowds out story
The finale of Don Pasquale, at Florida Grand Opera. (Photo by Lorne Grandison) Two of this area’s opera companies bookended the season with Gaetano Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, with the Palm Beach Opera doing a 17th-century take on the early 19th-century setting in which this 1842 opera was initially set. The production of Don Pasquale now showing at Florida Grand Opera in … [Read more...]
The fierce beauty of irezumi, at the Morikami
Forget the butterfly, the thorny vine and the heart with initials. Imagine a colorful bird with a fish’s tail, a snake’s neck, and a turtle’s shell expanding from the neck all the way to the ankles. That’s what you can expect to see now at the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens. Perseverance: Japanese Tattoo Tradition in a Modern World features photographs of full body … [Read more...]
Boca Ballet Theatre to mark 25th with stars they fostered
By Dale King Boca Ballet’s executive director, Dan Guin, feverishly pulled together copies of Dance Magazine covers from the past several years that were strewn across his desk. “He performed here,” he said, poking his finger at the photo of a familiar dance artist. “She did, too,” he said, pointing at another. Guin repeated this action again and again until he singled 27 … [Read more...]
The war that never ends: Historian Winter to discuss WWI at Festival of the Arts Boca
French soldiers in the trenches during World War I. Imagine a world in which Great Britain and Germany are the major powers, and the United States and Russia are only minor players on the global scene. It’s a world of relatively conservative politics, where there was no World War II, no Holocaust, and no one but their families had ever heard of Adolf Hitler or Vladimir … [Read more...]
Kravis to welcome its newest resident: A digital organ
The George W. Mergens Memorial Organ. If you happened to be driving by the Kravis Center early Saturday morning, you might have felt something unfamiliar: A tremor, a rumbling, a distant shaking. That was no earthquake you heard — at least not in the terrestrial sense. What you heard was a sonic quake, an electron-wave tsunami, the shuddering of a subwoofer temblor. It was … [Read more...]
PB Opera’s ‘Carmen,’ second cast: A subdued heroine, brilliant Young Artists
Nora Sourouzian. Bizet’s collection of melodies in his opera Carmen continue to buzz around in the recesses of the brain long after the performance has ended. His music is immortal. The production I saw at Palm Beach Opera on Jan. 23 had all the elements of a successful evening with some minor flaws. But it’s the music that lives on. Also, on this occasion, is the memory of … [Read more...]
Kim leads Symphonia in slightly ragged glory of Bach, Piazzolla
Last season at about this time, the Symphonia Boca Raton brought Philadelphia Orchestra concertmaster David Kim to the conductor’s podium for an evening of Baroque showpieces, and in so doing, brought a new kind of energy to the orchestra’s profile. Kim was back again for a similar style program Saturday night at the Eissey Campus Theatre at Palm Beach State College in Palm … [Read more...]
At the Four Arts: The lost glory of a Southern capital, recaptured
An ongoing exhibition at the Society of the Four Arts tells the story of how the golden era of Charleston, S.C., came and left, while its fruits went everywhere. An Eye for Opulence: Charleston through the Lens of the Rivers Collection consists of more than 200 mahogany furniture pieces, silver objects and fine art representing the city’s enviable prosperity during the … [Read more...]
Norton’s ‘This Place’ explores ‘otherness’ of Israel
By Sandra Schulman The Norton Museum of Art is the first U.S. venue to host This Place, an international photo exhibition that explores Israel and the West Bank. “I wanted to do a broad-ranging exhibition that looks beyond the headlines,” said photographer/curator Frederic Brenner. “It was not done to connect the dots.” Brenner started the project in 2008 to “try and … [Read more...]