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Susan Hall

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  • The Weir by Conor McPherson Front Page

    Irish Repertory Theatre Screens Performance

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 27th, 2020

    The Irish Repertory Theatre has come up with the perfect play to stream. The Weir is a quintet, Four men living in a remote Irish country town are joined by a pretty woman from Dublin. Stories are told by four characters and the camera focuses on them during the telling. The scene broadens to include reactions. Sometimes Director Ciarán O’Reilly has an actor face the camera, deeply involving us in the drama.

  • Fred Plotkin: Renaissance Man Front Page

    Renowned Expert on Italian food and Opera

    By: Jessica Robinson - Jul 23rd, 2020

    Fred Plotkin notes: “I am not a singer or musician, yet my working life has a lot of similarities in that most of my income is derived from appearing in front of audiences in places of public assembly. People buy tickets to what I do so, of course, that means that all of my contracts, all of my speaking engagements, have been canceled until November.”

  • Amadeus Streamed by National Theatre Front Page

    What Salieri Saw in Mozart That Vienna Missed

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 21st, 2020

    Often it is suggested that Salieri was alone in his appreciation of Mozart. He saw immediately his extraordinary gifts. Enjoy Leonard Bernstein’s father’s response to a question about why he did not support his son’s musical aspirations. “I didn’t know Leonard Bernstein was Leonard Bernstein.” Viennese society did not know that Mozart was Mozart. No one did, xcept Antonio Salieri, writers’ observe, beginning with Puskin.

  • National Theatre Streams Rattigan's Deep Blue Sea Front Page

    Helen McCrory Stars; Carrie Cracknell Directs

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 17th, 2020

    National Theatre at Home streams Deep Blue Sea by Terrence Rattigan and Amadeus by Peter Shaffer. Remarkable productions keep theaters live when their homes are shuttered.

  • The Digital Stage from Festival d'Aix Front Page

    Boesmans, Stravinsky, Simon McBurney Under One Umbrella

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 12th, 2020

    Pinocchio and The Rake’s Progress, video recordings of performances at Aix, are now being offered. They continue on YouTube after the Digital Festival 2020 ends. The importance of Aix as a creator of new work and new productions is clear in these two works.

  • Kendall Messick's The Projectionist Front Page

    An Outsider Artist's Secret World

    By: Jessica Robinson - Jul 09th, 2020

    How one man lovingly – and obsessively - constructed his very own movie palace in the basement of his suburban home.

  • Streaming from Aix-en-Provence Front Page

    Saariaho, Sellars, Rattle and Kožená

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 07th, 2020

    Aix en Provence is offering a digital festival to those of us who can't enter France. Their selection of recitals, conversations and opera performances is intriguing and invites.

  • Tanglewood Goes Online for Summer Festival Front Page

    Nelsons on the Podium and in Class

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 06th, 2020

    My colleague Phillip S. Kampe spent opening day at Tanglewood. It. was not what he expected. He enjoyed bottled water only. Yet the scenery and the quiet was transforming. You can fill in the real thing with rich program streaming from the Boston Symphony.

  • Birmingham Opera's Mittwoch aus Licht by Stockhausen Front Page

    Listening to the Future and Preparing for What is To Come

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 06th, 2020

    Birmingham Opera streams Karlheinz Stochhausen's Mittwoche, helicopters and call. Graham Vick brings us the humor and mystery of this great work. Housed in an industrial warehouse, the audience sits and lies on the floor to listen and irresistibly engage in the proceedings. They compulsively draw us in, listening to harmonies and melodic lines emerge from a trombonist in a plastic pool, splashing water, and a parliament gathered on tennis umpire chairs to discuss the most important of world subjects, love.

  • Alice Sachs Zimet The Collector Front Page

    Follow Heart and Eyes, but not Your Ears

    By: Jessica Robinson - Jul 05th, 2020

    In December of 1984 Alice Sachs Zimet attended an exhibition at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York. She had come with Sam Wagstaff, the lover of Robert Mapplethorpe. They were there to see a flower photography exhibition from Wagstaff’s vast and groundbreaking collection.That’s where Zimet saw an image by contemporary photographer Andrew Bush titled Columbines. It was love at first sight.

  • Alice Sachs Zimet The Collector Front Page

    Follow Your Heart and Eyes, but not Your Ears

    By: Jessica Robinson - Jul 02nd, 2020

    In December of 1984 Alice Sachs Zimet attended an exhibition at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York. She had come with Sam Wagstaff, the lover of Robert Mapplethorpe. They were there to see a flower photography exhibition from Wagstaff’s vast and groundbreaking collection.That’s where Zimet saw an image by contemporary photographer Andrew Bush titled Columbines. It was love at first sight.

  • David Lang's Love Fails Streams Front Page

    Beth Morrison Projects Presents Opera of the Week

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 02nd, 2020

    Beth Morrison brings us the 'love fails' stream. Morrison is a leader in the march forward of opera into the 21st century. The opera was recorded in Poland with the superb Quince Contemporary Ensemble performing. Echo is used effectively to hover voices in the performance space.

  • Woodie King Jr., Andre De Shields, Chuck Smith Front Page

    Three Men Rap Their Truth

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 01st, 2020

    What a month to hear black men, and women too, at the top of their game in theater, talk about their journeys to success. As Andre De Shields told the world when he won his first Tony at age 73, "the slowest way is how to get where you want to be." Chuck Smith is a resident director at the Goodman in Chicago. Woodie King Jr. founded the New Federal Theater fifty years ago.

  • Lawrence Brownlee from Home on Being Black Front Page

    A Formidable Tenor Speaks Openly About race

    By: Susan Hall - Jun 29th, 2020

    Lawrence Brownlee sang a two-part concert at the Park Avenue Armory in 2017. In the Officer's Room he performed the bel canto arias we have come to associate with him. He is entirely comfortable. And he is sure that Bellini would welcome him, black or not, in any role. He moved to the Veteran's Room for the second part of the program. There he performed pop songs, gospel and folk. He was less comfortable in the more relaxed atmosphere. Now with downtime he discusses race.

  • Woolf Works Streaming from the Royal Ballet Front Page

    Wayne McGregor and Max Richter Join in Storytelling

    By: Susan Hall - Jun 26th, 2020

    The Royal Ballet's #OurHousetoYourHouse premieres a stream of Wayne McGregor's Woolf Works, featuring music by Max Richter and inspired by the writings of Virginia Woolf. It won the Olivier and the Critic's Circle Awards for Dance in 2015. Allesandra Ferri dances Woolf.

  • MOMA Streams Salacia by Tourmaline Front Page

    Transgender Life in 1830 Seneca Village

    By: Susan Hall - Jun 25th, 2020

    Salacia is a short film made by Tourmaline, a transgender artist who discovered a compatriot in a New York City Village located in Manhattan in 1830. It was one of the few places in America that black people could own land and vote. It was taken by eminent domain to make way for Central Park.

  • Daniel Chester French and Minute Man's Model Front Page

    All in the Family

    By: Susan Hall - Jun 25th, 2020

    Isaac Davis, Captain of the Acton troops was the model for the Minute Man. He was the first officer killed on April 19, 1775. The statute is placed on the ground on which he died.

  • Orchestra of St. Luke's Presents Bach at Home Front Page

    Delightful Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 Launches Series

    By: Susan Hall - Jun 24th, 2020

    Musicians return to Bach as a home base. He is not only fundamental, but a composer of sheer beauty, delight and even complexity. As listeners, we can return with the Orchestra of St. Luke's to a series of online concerts for our home bound performance time.

  • Maria Scarpini, Artist and Set Designer Front Page

    Color is Her Tool

    By: Jessica Robinson - Jun 19th, 2020

    Maria Scarpini is multi-faceted to put it mildly. She is a trained restorer of old master paintings, monuments and frescos. She is also a self-taught painter who has been in group and solo exhibitions from Brooklyn, New York to the American University in Paris. Now she turns to the settings of opera.

  • Woodie King Jr. Looks for Leroy Jones Front Page

    Rapping with Artists on Zoom

    By: Susan Hall - Jun 18th, 2020

    Woodie King Jr.'s Rapping with Artist Series continues with a discussion of Larry Muhammed's acclaimed "Looking for Leroy." Director Petronia Paley and the playwright join King in a lively discussion of the play, one of the best Zoom theatrical pieces,

  • Joseph Nechvatal’s Art Springs From Algorithms Front Page

    Viral Venture Online at White Page Gallery

    By: Jessica Robinson - Jun 15th, 2020

    Long before we had heard of, or even imagined, viruses like Covid-19, Post-Minimal painter, multi-media artist and art theoretician Joseph Nechvatal was generating them. Not the contagious types, but computer-robotic assisted ones.

  • Virtual Works & Process from the Guggenheim Front Page

    Social Distancing Dance and Music

    By: Susan Hall - Jun 14th, 2020

    Works & Process Artists (WPA) Virtual Commissions financially supports artists and nurtures their creative process during these challenging times. Works & Process at the Guggenheim is granting over $150,000 for artists to create new works while observing social distancing. New works will be posted on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube (@worksandprocess) every Sunday and Monday at 7:30pm.

  • MoMA Streams "Right On" from The Last Poets Front Page

    Produced by Woodie King Jr and Directed by Herbert Danska

    By: Susan Hall - Jun 11th, 2020

    MoMA is streaming a restored print of Right On!, a classic film released in the early 1970s. Featuring The Last Poets, we are taken back to the origins of Hip Hop and of the first presentation of black culture by blacks. Felice Luciano, one of the original poets, speaks briefly about the prophetic poetry of the group. Fifty years ago they predicted today.

  • HERE Presents Disposable Men Front Page

    James Scruggs Multi-faceted Picture of Black Men

    By: Susan Hall - Jun 10th, 2020

    HERE has always been on the cutting edge of multi-disciplinary art. In 2005, they produced Disposable Men by James Scruggs. Scruggs presented the black man as the object of fear in communities. People in turn rise up against innocent men of color. Amadou Diallo, shot 41 times on his doorstep in New York in February 1999 is Scruggs' jumping off point.

  • Spa Journeys for Astral Travelers Front Page

    What A Trip

    By: Jessica Robinson - Jun 10th, 2020

    Canyon Ranch may be just down the road for Berkshireites, but in the time of Covid, it's as inaccessible as the moon. Jessica Robinson suggests how to satisfy a spa yearning safely.

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