Anna Deveare Smith won’t be mounting a full production of her new one-woman show On Grace at the Festival of the Arts Boca. But she will be offering the one thing that might be better — a chance for the audience to become co-creators of the play. “I’m going to be doing excerpts from On Grace,” Smith said recently by phone. “This is a presentation, not a production. It’s still … [Read more...]
PBO’s ‘Traviata’ has impressive Violetta, Germont
Today’s opera singers are expected to be persuasive actors, and that can be a challenge given the very short dramatic trajectories their characters must ride in the pages of most libretti. In the case of Violetta Valéry, the doomed heroine of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata, sopranos have enough splendid music that if their acting is less than persuasive, they can still make a … [Read more...]
PB Opera opens 50th season with beautiful ‘Butterfly’
In the world of Madama Butterfly, it’s all about her, with the occasional supporting character coming in now and again to move the plot along. But Palm Beach Opera’s current presentation of Giacomo Puccini’s Japanese opera is noteworthy for the strength of its supporting cast overall, and with a fine performance at its center plus a tasteful, intelligent staging, this … [Read more...]
PB Opera’s ‘Cosi’ well-sung, craftily staged
The Palm Beach Opera is closing its three-year survey of the Mozart-Da Ponte operas with a somewhat minimalist but well-staged and ably sung production of Così fan Tutte. Friday night found a cast of young, handsome singers working inside a Stephen Lawless reading of the opera that was easy to understand, almost plausible, and full of smart, interesting stage business that … [Read more...]
Mustafa jazz fest still going strong
South Florida has not lacked for jazz festivals over the years, but the road to musical fulfillment for local fans of this great art form has been rocky. Consider the once-promising Riviera Beach Jazz and Blues Festival, which from 2002 to 2008 drew people from around the Southeast before getting away from its simple musical formula and falling victim to financial … [Read more...]
PB Opera’s bold, radical ‘Giovanni’ stumbles without statue
s Chekhov’s rule in theater was this: If you’ve got a gun on stage, you’re going to have to fire it at some point. By the same token, if you promise people a monster, you’re going to have to show it. But the Palm Beach Opera’s new production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which opened Friday night at the Kravis Center, dispenses with the climactic theatrical device of the opera … [Read more...]