You want proof that Broadway tours across the nation are starving for product? Head to the Broward Center during the next week and get a look at Ghost, the Musical, as muddled and lifeless as any show that someone thought warranted a national showcase. In 2012, this movie-to-stage transfer eked out almost a five-month run in New York after garnering a dismissive set of … [Read more...]
Sundays: Magic carpet ride
By Myles Ludwig The red carpet has been a trope since the 5th century B.C., when the coy Clytemnestra welcomed home the wings beneath her feet from his travails in Troy. The not-always-humble monarch Agamemnon wisely demurred, according to Aeschylus. He was nervous about stepping onto the path reserved for the gods. Hey, he might have said, "I am a mortal, a man; I cannot … [Read more...]
Strong corps of singers lifts charming ‘Barber’ at PB Opera
There is a celebrated passage in Stendhal’s Life of Rossini in which the French writer describes an outing he and his friends took to Lake Como exactly 200 years ago, in the summer of 1814. The party had a wonderful time on the road from Brescia to Como, and an even better time staying at the beautiful inn run by one of Stendhal’s other friends once they got there. That night, … [Read more...]
Brilliant FGO production lets ‘Mourning’ shine
Marvin David Levy’s opera Mourning Becomes Electra made a big impression when it was first launched at the Metropolitan Opera in 1967, helped by the star turns of its leading ladies, Evelyn Lear and Marie Collier, and a young baritone named Sherrill Milnes. It had to wait 30 years for its next performance, at Chicago’s Lyric Opera, and its current production at Florida Grand … [Read more...]
Black Violin: When Bach met Tupac
If it’s true that a serious musician doesn’t really know any genre boundaries, then it’s even truer for the two men who make up Black Violin. These two Fort Lauderdale natives and graduates of the Dillard High School for the Performing Arts (now the Dillard Center for the Arts) have for 10 years been forging a career out of an original style of music that takes them from Bach … [Read more...]
Composer-lyricist gets showcase for a compassionate look at love
By Hap Erstein Chances are you do not know the name Daniel Maté, but if The Theatre at Arts Garage’s artistic director Lou Tyrrell’s hunch is right, you soon will. He is so excited by the talents of this 38-year-old composer-lyricist-playwright that he has scheduled two of Maté’s show for this season. The last time he did that was in the 2001-2002 season of Florida Stage, … [Read more...]
Sundays: We really should look under the hood
By Myles Ludwig These are the days of lasers in the jungle/Lasers in the jungle somewhere/ Staccato signals of constant information/ A loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires/ And baby, these are the days of miracle and wonder /This is the long-distance call Paul Simon’s lyrics are prophetic. Apparently, no one answered that call. It went straight to voicemail. … [Read more...]
2013-14 arts preview: The fall season in film
It remains hard to believe that the industry that gave us all the superhero comic book dreck that filled multiplexes this summer is the same mill that can churn out so much anticipated award fodder in the fall. But get ready for the work of such admired directors as Alexander Payne (Nebraska), Martin Scorsese (The Wolf of Wall Street), David O. Russell (American Hustle) and the … [Read more...]
‘The Unwinding’: Tearing down the house that FDR built
In his ambitious new book, George Packer describes the rise of “organized money” in business and politics and the collapse, or unwinding, of “the Roosevelt Republic that had reined for almost half a century.” Packer’s nimble prose moves the story along, although the book suffers from disorganization and an odd mixture of short profiles of several celebrities and longer … [Read more...]
Sundays: The spectacle of justice
By Myles Ludwig Justice. Now here is a concept as thin and as slippery as a fine slice of sashimi and as complex as a celebrity fragrance profile. Philosophers have been arguing about it since Socrates and Plato, parsing into as many cultural and ethical Apps as iTunes can stock and it’s still not really clear what it is or how it works. Except as some kind of culture-bound … [Read more...]