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Susan Hall

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  • The City Without Jews Screened in New York Front Page

    An Important Silent Film With Wonderful New Music

    By: Susan Hall - Oct 04th, 2023

    What a silent film can teach us – about history and the relationship between the visual and the auditory. The City Without Jews is a famous 1924 silent film directed by H. K. Breslauer who would go on to become a Nazi, probably out of convenience. In this film, he actually seems to like Jews, to find them charming, bright and funny. Presented at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in New York.

  • Verdi's Simon Boccanegra at Opera Philadelphia Front Page

    Stellar Cast, Moving Production

    By: Susan Hall - Oct 02nd, 2023

    Opera Philadelphia knows how to produce opera. They recognize its multiple forms and multiple historic periods. No company in this country has spearheaded the development of new opera with such an effective program. Yet Philadelphia also continues to produce the tried and true with great style.

  • La Jolla Playhouse Goes Gonzo Music

    By: Sharon Eubanks - Sep 28th, 2023

    The world premiere of The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical, is presented by the La Jolla Playhouse.  Fifteen years in the making, the musical envisions Hunter’s life from childhood to his tragic death. The book is by Joe Iconis and Gregory S. Moss, music and lyrics by Iconis, and choreography by Jon Rua.

  • Dopplegangers at the Park Avenue Armory Front Page

    Jonas Kaufman and Helmut Deutsch Double Our Pleasure

    By: Susan Hall - Sep 28th, 2023

    I like to attend an event without reading the build-up. This gives me a chance to respond viscerally. Every event at the Park Avenue Armory is tasteful. Pierre Audi, the artistic director, provides this. He is unique in New York.

  • La Jolla Playhouse Goes Gonzo Front Page

    Hunter Thompson Musical Premieres

    By: Sharon Eubanks - Sep 27th, 2023

    The world premiere of The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical, is presented by the La Jolla Playhouse.  Fifteen years in the making, the musical envisions Hunter’s life from childhood to his tragic death. The book is by Joe Iconis and Gregory S. Moss, music and lyrics by Iconis, and choreography by Jon Rua.

  • Opera Philadelphia Presents 10 Days in a Madhouse Front Page

    World Premiere by Rene Orth

    By: Susan Hall - Sep 24th, 2023

    Rene Orth’s opera 10 Days in a Madhouse enjoyed a World Premiere at the Opera Philadelphia Festival. A tip off to where the weight lies in the opera was the stage set, immediately apparent when we enter the Wilma Theatre. The set is dominated by a Richard Serra-like sculpture. Our eyes and then our ears are fixed up where the orchestra tops the sculpture.

  • John Zorn Celebrates 70 Front Page

    Who Knew Classical Music Could be So Much Fun

    By: Susan Hall - Sep 22nd, 2023

    One of the reasons John Zorn’s music attracts is that it’s so damn much fun. Leaping on and off the stage to introduce the numbers in his first of many 70th birthday celebrations at the Miller Theatre at Columbia, Zorn looked like he was going to last forever. And let’s hope he does. 

  • American Tenor Stephen Gould Dies at 61 Front Page

    His Performances Were Always A Treat

    By: Susan Hall - Sep 20th, 2023

    Berkshire Fine Arts was fortunate to hear Stephen Gould sing Parsifal in Bayreuth two years ago. He retired from Bayreuth this summer when he was diagnosed with incurable cancer.

  • New Federal Theatre Opens Fall Season Front Page

    Gala and Micki Grant Premiere Directed by Woodie King Jr.

    By: Susan Hall - Sep 09th, 2023

    For over five decades, the New Federal Theatre has presented undiscovered talent like Denzel Washington, Debbie Allen, Phylicia Rashad, S. Epatha Merkerson, Issa Rae, La Tanya Richardson Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson, Chadwick Boseman, and Morgan Freeman in their first stage appearances. They premiered For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide. Led. by Woodie King Jr. and now Elizabeth Van Dyke, the New Federal Theatre is a national treasure.

  • Adam Tendler and Cage at the Crypt Front Page

    Andrew Ousley's Death Defying Death of Classical

    By: Susan Hall - Sep 08th, 2023

    Leave it to the brilliant impresario Andrew Ousley and his music series, Death of Classical,  to bring us an incredible and surprising evening of John Cage music. Before Cage moved on to the concepts of indeterminacy and chance, he composed more conventionally arced works for the prepared piano, in which screws were systematically and specifically applied to some strings in a grand piano, Cage clearly began in one place and ended up in another.  Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano is a deliberate whole. 

  • Oppenheimer, the Film Front Page

    No Answers for Creative Impulses of Great Scientists

    By: Viktor Raykin - Sep 04th, 2023

    Oppenheimer, the film. Prepare your rotten tomatoes. The movie is loud, gray and one-dimensional.

  • A Visit to Tippet Rise. Part II Front Page

    A Special Staff for a Special Place

    By: Susan Hall - Aug 27th, 2023

    Pete Hinmon and Lindsey Hinmon are Co-Directors of Tippet Rise Art Center. They are warm and deeply thoughtful, qualities you find in everyone at this working ranch. Qualities clearly treasured by the Halsteads, the couple creating this special art venue. The Halsteads have a knack for picking people. 

  • A Visit to Tippet Rise, Part I Front Page

    Local is the Future of Music and Art

    By: Susan Hall - Aug 22nd, 2023

    Tippet Rise is the passionate expression of Cathy Halstead, a painter, and Peter Halstead, a polymath (poet, pianist, photographer, and novelist) who met when they were very young and have lived like two peas in a pod ever since.  Having assembled about 12,500 acres in southern Montana not far from Yellowstone National Park, they have taken cues from the natural surroundings to build concert halls, place site-specific architecture and sculptures and produce an annual summer music festival which is a model for the future.

  • Tippet Rise Makes Music in Place Front Page

    The Montana Ranch Home to Concerts and Sculpture

    By: Susan Hall - Aug 09th, 2023

    Tippet Rise Art Center welcomes musicians and concertgoers for its eighth concert season, beginning August 18 and running through September 17. With more than 15 indoor and outdoor performances planned over five weekends, the season features a wide range of repertoire performed by artists who can be young trailblazers or legendary musicians. A highlight of this summer’s season is the debut of the new Wander series, which moves musicians and audiences between different works of art installed at the art center

  • Is it Thursday Yet at La Jolla Playhouse Front Page

    Jenn Freeman and Sonya Tayeh Join Forces in Dance and Drama

    By: Sharon Eubanks - Aug 01st, 2023

    "Is it Thursday Yet", playing at the La Jolla Playhouse, tells the story of dancer Jenn Freeman, who was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) when she was 33 years old.  Using actual recordings of her therapy sessions and home videos Jenn’s father recorded as she grew up, the play is essentially a documentary of Jenn Freeman’s life from infancy to young adulthood. Neither Jenn nor her family knew she had ASD.  

  • Bach by Bike in Leipzig Front Page

    A Trio Stops in the Summersaal

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 31st, 2023

    An enthusiastic cyclist, violinist Marieke Neumann was the developer of the “Bach Bicycle Route” in central Germany, featuring guided tours to important locations from the composer’s life. Mezzo-soprano Anna-Luise Oppelt joins her for Bach by Bike to visit towns and cities where Johann Sebastian Bach lived and worked.

  • Katrin Hilbe at Berlin Opera Academy Front Page

    Acting Skills Now Fundamental

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 28th, 2023

    he advent of Freudianism somehow severed the mind from the body, but over the past decades, there has been a return to the wisdom of late 19th century philosopher William James who saw the body and mind as deeply interrelated.  

  • Berkshire Opera Festival Brings in Boheme Front Page

    Epic Love and Loss of Innocence Central to the Drama

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 28th, 2023

    Berkshire Opera Festival continues its 2023 summer season with a mainstage production of La Bohème on August 26, August 29, and September 1 at The Colonial Theater in Pittsfield, MA. One of the most beloved operatic love stories of all time, La Bohème is based on Henri Murger's 1851 novel, Scènes de la vie de Bohème, which follows the lives of young people living in the Latin Quarter of Paris

  • Marina Carr at the Abbey Theatre Front Page

    Dublin Looks at Girl on the Altar

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 23rd, 2023

    Marina Carr has joined Lady Augusta Gregory in the pantheon of playwrights pictured on the walls of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.  Her new play "Girl on the Altar" is playing now.

  • Rhiannon Giddens Adds New Dimensions to Ojai Front Page

    A New Silkroad Winds Across a Boundary-less World

    By: Susan Hall - Jun 27th, 2023

    Rhiannon Giddens is leading new music which is both classical and popular. Her commitment to telling stories that have been buried and to showing us the world as it really is in music heralds anew age.

  • Ojai Festival on Historic Journey Front Page

    Rhiannon Giddens Programs All Music

    By: Sharon Eubanks - Jun 22nd, 2023

    At the 2023 Ojai music festival, Rhiannon Giddens, musical director, and a supremely talented group of musicians, presented a program that challenged the audience to take a musical journey with them around the world.  

  • A Sex-Positive Xerxes Front Page

    Komische Oper's Ecstatic Production

    By: Patrick Lynch - Jun 19th, 2023

    Handel’s Xerxes is a sex-positive party in this ecstatic production presented by Komische Oper. The theater itself is a beautiful little jewel box seating about 1200 people, an intimate setting appropriate to a production that would highlight intimacy.

  • Experiments in Opera Presents Anthony Braxton Front Page

    Feisty Opera Company Improvises at The Brick

    By: Susan Hall - Jun 18th, 2023

    In 1999, Anthony Braxton caught the performance of an Improv group at Wesleyan College where he has taught for twenty-three years. Among its members was Lin Manuel Miranda. He picked a trooper and asked him to do an improvisation with him. The duo, collaborating on compositions 279 to 283, was the inspiration for this funny, hip and moving improv designed by Experiments in Opera (EiO).

  • Susan Rennie Subverts the Male Gaze Front Page

    Artist's Work on View in Venice, California

    By: Susan Hall - Jun 16th, 2023

    Long before the Brooklyn Museum discovered the notorious Hannah Gadsby of "Nanette" and engaged her services as a curator of Pablo Picasso, Susan Rennie was gripped by the idea that art most often was created by the male gaze. 

  • The Doctor at Park Avenue Armory Front Page

    Is it Possible to Function in Fully Human Mode

    By: Viktor Raykin - Jun 16th, 2023

    Arthur `Schnitzler's play "Professor Bernhardi" has been completely rewritten by director Robert Icke, who takes the action from 1900 Vienna to present-day Britain. Now called "The Doctor", it was a smash hit in London and is running until August 19th at the Park Avenue Armory in New York.