Susan Hall
Bio:
Recent Articles:
-
Kavalier and Clay Come to the Met Front Page
Composer Mason Bates Not Well Served
By: - Sep 26th, 2025If you listened carefully to a panel discussion at the Guggenheim Museum a few weeks before the opera by Mason Bates, The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, opened, you could hear the problems staging this work was going to face at the Metropolitan Opera.
-
Victoria Bond at The Village Trip Front Page
Wonderful, Wild Music in New York
By: - Sep 19th, 2025Poets of Patchin Place features the première of settings of Barnes’ poetry by William Kentner Anderson. Also on the program: Victoria Bond: “Leopold Bloom’s Homecoming” from Ulysses by James Joyce. Nehemiah Luckett: “Oceans Always Lead to Some Great Good Place,” inspired by James Baldwin’s Another Country and commissioned by The Village Trip for Baldwin’s centennial,
-
White Raven, Black Dove in Boston Front Page
White Snakes Projects Presents
By: - Sep 17th, 2025Celebrated for creating diverse, timely and relevant opera, White Snake Projects (WSP) returns to Boston’s Strand Theatre, September 26-28, 2025, for the world premiere of White Raven, Black Dove, in a season dedicated to addressing the climate crisis through art. Composed by Jacinth Greywoode and Andrew Lynch, and written by librettist Cerise Lim Jacob, White Raven, Blake Dove is an original work of science fiction fantasy exploring two issues consuming America today – race and climate change.
-
The Heart at La Jolla Front Page
By Kate Kerrigan, Music and Lyrics by Anne Eisendrath and Ian Eisendrath
By: - Sep 08th, 2025The Heart is written by Kate Kerrigan, with music and lyrics by Anne Eisendrath and Ian Eisendrath. It is based on the novel, Réparer les Vivants by Maylis de Kerangal. In the LA Jolla Playhouse production, over 24 hours, the heart of a person in the wrong place at the wrong time is connected to another person who was in the right place at the right time to answer the call.
-
Berio and Boulez at the Berlin Music Festiva; Front Page
Both Composers 100th Birthdays
By: - Sep 05th, 2025The Berlin Music Festival is honoring Luciano Berio on the occasion of his 100th birthday with eight concerts devoted to his work. His explorations of acoustic sound fused with electronics, his relentless push to test the technical and expressive limits of instruments, his inventive musical collage and dialogues between traditions are all being showcased. Pierre Boulez, whose centenary also falls this year, is likewise being celebrated.
-
Berlin Philharmonic Opens Its Season Front Page
Kirill Petrenko Compels
By: - Aug 31st, 2025The Berlin Philharmonic launched its 2025–26 season with a program that set Schumann, Zimmermann, and Brahms in conversation across a century of musical upheaval. Under Kirill Petrenko’s direction, the evening unfolded less like a sequence of works than a drama in three acts.
-
BSO Opens its Boston Season Front Page
Free Concert in Symphony Hall
By: - Aug 26th, 2025The Boston Symphony opens its fall season with a free concert at Symphony Hall on September 17.
-
Patricia White 1948-2025 Front Page
A Guiding Light for Emerging Voices in Theater
By: - Aug 15th, 2025Patricia White, the long-time company manager of Woodie King, Jr.'s New Federal Theatre (NFT) and a well-known figure in Black Theatre, died August 10 after a brief illness. "Pat," as she was widely called, was well-known throughout the theater community as a director, mentor, producer, backstage coordinator, grant writer, box office manager and administrator. Her comprehensive understanding of the theatrical process helped shape countless productions and careers.
-
The Federal Theatre Project as Play Front Page
Hallie Flanagan and Subsidized Art
By: - Aug 10th, 2025This is exactly the moment to remember a time when the federal government saw theatre not as a luxury, but as a public good—bringing professional productions to cities large and small across America.
-
Dream Up Theater Festival in NY Front Page
Theater for a New City Presents
By: - Aug 08th, 2025From August 24 to September 14, 2025, Theater for the New City (TNC), under the direction of Crystal Field, will present its thirteenth Dream Up Festival, adventurous drama in New York.
-
Faure's Penelope at Munich Opera Front Page
Karkacheva and Jovanovich Star
By: - Aug 01st, 2025As part of its 150th anniversary celebration, the Munich Opera Festival presented Pénélope by Gabriel Fauré—a bold and welcome choice. To champion this rarely performed work, the company brought in Andrea Breth, one of Germany’s most accomplished theater directors. The cast clearly responded to her direction with commitment and nuance.
-
Mundruczó's Lohengrin in Munich Front Page
Munich Opera Festival Mounts Wagner's Most Frequentlyly Performed Work
By: - Jul 31st, 2025No opera company today rivals the Munich Opera when it comes to innovative yet deeply respectful productions of the classic repertoire. While it’s tempting—and often rewarding—to look beyond the traditional opera circuit for new creative voices, few choices are as effective as Hungarian filmmaker and theater director Kornél Mundruczó.
-
Das Rheingold in Munich Front Page
Prelude to a Stunning New Ring Cycle by Tobias Kratzger
By: - Jul 29th, 2025The Munich Opera celebrates summer with an annual festival. This year, the prelude to the Ring Cycle by Richard Wagner, Das Rheingold, provided novel and thrilling music and drama.
-
Opera Comes to the Williamstown Festival Front Page
Samuel Barber's Vanessa in a New Take by Heartbeat Opera
By: - Jul 12th, 2025Vanessa is the first opera to be performed at the Williamstown Festival, running from July 17 through August 3. It will be produced by Heartbeat Opera, a company known for revitalizing underperformed masterpieces and breathing new life into opera’s staples.
-
Berkshire Festival Opera to Produce La Traviata Front Page
Exciting Programs in Berkshires' Backyard
By: - Jun 26th, 2025The Berkshire Opera Festival has restored world-class, fully-staged opera to the Berkshires. Their tenth anniversary season in Great Barrington features Giuseppe Verdi's masterpiece La Traviata at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center on August 23, 26, and 29.
-
Fly by Night Dance Soars in New York Front Page
Charming and Funny Extension of Dance Movement
By: - Jun 08th, 2025Fly By Night Dance presented its annual New York Aerial Dance Festival at the Manhattan Movement and Arts Center. Founded by Julie Lutwick, the group is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of modern dance. This program demonstrated how storytelling can be enhanced through trapeze work, live music, and the recitation of poignant historic poems.
-
Guntram Performed by American Symphony Orchestra Front Page
First opera of Richard Strauss
By: - Jun 08th, 2025Leon Botstein, the ever-adventuresome conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra, brought Richard Strauss's first opera, Guntram, to Carnegie Hall. This early work by Strauss showcases a prolifically productive composer whose treasured operas and symphonic works would eventually become cornerstones of concert halls worldwide.
-
Angel's Share at the Greenwood Cemetery Front Page
Cocktails, Comestibles & Callas
By: - May 29th, 2025Impresario Andrew Ousley has opened up the world of classical music to a new generation—one often untutored and underexposed—by presenting it in some of the most unexpected venues: churches and cemeteries.
-
Heartbeat Opera Shapeshifts Faust Front Page
Gounod's Opera Updated
By: - May 20th, 2025Heartbeat Opera is a crown jewel in New York’s opera diadem. Their productions make opera accessible and compelling to contemporary audiences by breathing new life into beloved classics. Faust, their current production running through May 25, is no exception—it’s a bold, inventive take that succeeds on many fronts.
-
Irishtown at the Irish Rep Front Page
Ever Wondered What Makes an Irish Play
By: - May 08th, 2025Irishtown is currently playing at the Irish Repertory Theatre in New York through May 25th. Nicola Murphy Dubey directs.
-
The Engish Concert at Carnegie Hall Front Page
A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever
By: - May 07th, 2025The English Concert performed a semi-staged, off-book production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto at Carnegie Hall. This annual visit by one of the world’s premier Baroque ensembles is eagerly awaited — and this year did not disappoint.
-
Handel in Hudson Front Page
R.B. Schlather Captures Handel's Spirit with a Fresh View
By: - May 02nd, 2025Hudson Hall in Hudson, New York, presents Handel’s Giulio Cesare as part of its ambitious celebration of the composer’s forty operas—each of which will eventually be staged here. It’s an exciting prospect.
-
Don Giovanni Entrances in Philadelphia Front Page
Opera Philadelphia Triumphs
By: - Apr 29th, 2025Opera Philadelphia is presenting Mozart’s original version of Don Giovanni at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. It’s a lively, visually striking production designed to showcase both the richness of Mozart’s score and Da Ponte’s intricate libretto.
-
Floyd Collins Echoes at Lincoln Center Front Page
Fresh Faces Enliven the Cast
By: - Apr 24th, 2025In 1925, a seemingly prescient family farmer became captivated by the idea of bringing a one-act Barnum and Bailey-style circus to the caves of Kentucky. Against this backdrop unfolds the story of Floyd Collins, whose entrapment in this famously fragile landscape—formed by the dissolution of limestone, collapsing sinkholes, sinking streams, and springs—captured national attention. His burial in the very Sand Cave he had chosen became a media sensation. Now it is a musical, Floyd Collins.
-
L.A. Rebellion Plays at Lincoln Center Front Page
A Visceral Picture of Black Life Brought to Film by Black Artists
By: - Apr 23rd, 2025In 1968, UCLA launched a groundbreaking initiative to increase enrollment of Black, Latino, Native American, and Asian film students. Though the program ended in 1973, it had already admitted a significant number of students of color, many of whom later attracted others to UCLA. This initiative produced a remarkable group of Black filmmakers. Film at Lincoln Center celebrates this legacy.
<< Previous Next >>