Set to turn 67 next month, Jeff Beck is one of three famed British lead guitarists who played with 1960s pop/rock group the Yardbirds, the others being Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. And each followed that stint by diving into heavy blues-rock: Clapton with Cream; Page with Led Zeppelin, and Beck with his self-titled group. But while Clapton left Cream to pursue simpler pop … [Read more...]
Broadway Postcard No. 1: Scratch the dim sum brunch
Whatever you’re doing today, you’re having a better day than I am, I assure you. Today was my travel day, heading to New York for my annual end-of-season Broadway show trip. For the past month, I have been combing through the listings, strategizing, negotiating with press agents, planning eight days of theatergoing. And because I was starting with a Sunday matinee (Sister … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: April 8-12
Art: The Norton Museum of Art has opened an exhibit of contemporary art featuring works by artists whose perception of the world around is refracted in unusual but precise ways. Altered States, which opened Saturday and runs through July 17, shows work by four artists – Jose Alvarez, Yayoi Kusama, Fred Tomaselli and Leo Villareal – who express this through painting, collages … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: April 1-3
Theater: Thanks to the business savvy of the Gershwin Estate, George and Ira Gershwin have written a few musicals after their deaths. Or rather, their vast song trunk has been made available to those who would reuse their familiar and obscure compositions in new settings, such as Crazy for You, a “new” show from 1992 that harkens back in style and score to the 1930s. The story … [Read more...]
Miami City Ballet’s ‘Romeo’ to open at Kravis
Following impressive performances at the Arsht Center, the Miami City Ballet’s production of Romeo and Juliet, which opens tomorrow at the Kravis Center, is quickly establishing itself as the company’s newest, and biggest, hit. The company is mounting legendary South African choreographer John Cranko’s setting of the story, to the 1940 score by Sergei Prokofiev. Part of the … [Read more...]
‘Just Go With It’ has eye candy, but little else, to offer
Like Tracy and Hepburn, or Charlie Sheen and blow, Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston are the most unsurprising of pairings. They are the master and mistress of middlebrow mirth, for whom the three-star review is an unattainable plateau. In fact, it’s hard to believe these two forces of rom-com mediocrity haven’t met-cute over some 15 years of shepherding penis jokes and … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 21-23
Theater: Although it is a little lighter than the usual fare at Coral Gables’ GableStage, the cutting edge company has a crowd-pleasing winner in Jane Prowse’s A Round-Heeled Woman, based on the true story of Jane Juska. In her mid-60s, she places an ad soliciting men to have sex with her, adding “If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me.” Of course, she attracts a … [Read more...]
Splendid Shostakovich as Enso Quartet plays Flagler
One of the joys of seeing small concerts that are part of a good music series is that you get to hear not just the venerable players but the rising stars. Surely Tuesday night’s performance at Palm Beach’s Flagler Museum by the Enso String Quartet was a case of seeing a young ensemble on the cusp of something really big, and its performance justified the wisdom of Grammy … [Read more...]
MCB marks 25th anniversary with sparkling opener
The Miami City Ballet is nothing if not synonymous with the name Edward Villella, the founder and artistic director. Villella’s second act, after a long and distinguished career dancing with George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet, was the creation of Miami’s world-class ballet troupe, which he has grown and nourished over the past 25 years. His philosophy, like … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Oct. 30-Nov. 2
Film: The long waited third shoe in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series -- The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest -- has just dropped locally, and it snaps the trilogy back into form, paring down the third weighty, introspective novel about Goth computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) and crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) into an involving, fast-paced … [Read more...]