In its first half, The Gift is a fine movie for our panicked, over-surveilled, mentally unstable age, and the second half is even more powerful. Like Rosemary’s Baby, it opens on an average, happy, industrious couple visiting its new home, in this case a palatial California spread overlooking miles of lush greenery. But things get creepy real quick. In the next scene, Simon … [Read more...]
Mahler’s Second at Lynn makes powerful impact
Something of a musical milestone took place the other day at Lynn University when the school’s conservatory orchestra, accompanied by two soloists and the Master Chorale of South Florida, gave two performances of Gustav Mahler’s gigantic Resurrection Symphony (No. 2 in C minor). These performances had actually been planned for the 2012-13 season, but Lynn’s hosting of one of … [Read more...]
PBO’s ‘Macbeth,’ second cast: Check’s Lady is a powerhouse
Palm Beach Opera’s production of Verdi’s Macbeth, based on Shakespeare’s drama of the same name, won thunderous applause Saturday night. Hardly uplifting, with so many murders and blood everywhere, it is the music that carries it along and raises it to exultant levels of high art. Shakespeare’s view of Macbeth has little historical basis in fact. Verdi was 33 when he wrote … [Read more...]
Festival makes case for enduring power of poetry
By Tom Tracy Miles Coon is aware that some people’s attitude toward poetry is less than welcoming. Perhaps they have indelible memories of having to recite a bit of rhyme in front of their eighth-grade class, something about “gate” and “fate” that they could never quite memorize. Maybe they were confused and baffled by a first encounter with Walt Whitman, singing endlessly … [Read more...]
Second cast: Cavernous set too much for PBO’s ‘Romeo et Juliette’
Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, which I heard Saturday at Palm Beach Opera, had a last-minute replacement tenor, Richard Troxell, filling in for the indisposed Bruno Ribeiro. The high tessitura of Romeo’s part proved difficult for Troxell on occasion, especially in the first two acts. However, he rallied and won the hearts and minds of the audience with a courageous second-half … [Read more...]
Capalbo triumphs in second cast of PB Opera’s ‘Butterfly’
In all my years of going to hear Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, I have never heard a better interpretation than that of Canadian soprano Michele Capalbo, who sang the lead role of Cio-Cio San on Saturday at Palm Beach Opera. Capalbo led the company’s “B” cast; the “A” cast opened Palm Beach Opera’s 50th season the night before. Taking on such demanding lead roles means opera … [Read more...]
Sondheim compiles second treasure trove of remarkable career
Fortunately for all concerned, Stephen Sondheim’s Look, I Made a Hat is not a treatise on the art of millinery. Instead, it is the sequel to Finishing the Hat, the pre-eminent American theater composer-lyricist’s compilation and consideration of his career, divided into two volumes and filled with nuggets of insight. Or, as he prefers to put it in his subtitle, “Collected … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Sept. 9-11
Film: Emerging Cinemas at Mos’Art Theatre in Lake Park has a treat for all children of the ’60s (which I proudly proclaim includes me). It is the hallucinogenic documentary Magic Trip, a celebration of author/guru Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) and his infamous 1964 cross-country ramble in a wildly painted school bus, with his posse of apostles aboard. Too young to … [Read more...]
Staging, weak Cavaradossi mar second cast of PBO’s ‘Tosca’
There are times when the stronger regional opera companies mount Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca to exploit every emotion: love, hate, seduction, torture and betrayal. Each is accented and the audiences go home satisfied. This was not one of them. Palm Beach Opera’s version, directed by Massimo Gasparon, had none of the blood lust one associates with this opera: Tosca’s knife, a … [Read more...]
Second ‘Cosi’ cast shows off voices of great promise
This refined, delicate, good-looking production of Mozart’s Così fan Tutte, with swaths of brilliantly lit open spaces, marble statues and lovely costumes, harks back to productions at the Salzburg Festival in 1982 -- even down to the same sunshade beach umbrella. There’s nothing wrong with that: Imitation is the finest form of flattery, after all. It shows the careful … [Read more...]