Susan Hall
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Recent Articles:
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Iphigenia in Splott at 59E59 Theaters Front Page
Sophie Melville Electrifies
By: - May 18th, 2017The tale comes direct from Aulis and Euripides. Gary Owen has updated the sacrificial woman to the 21st Century, where in Wales, like many other places around the world, women are still being asked to make superhuman sacrifices. Sophie Melville's tour de force performance is superb.
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Philip Glass at the Miller Theater Front Page
Pop up Concert Features Michael Riesman
By: - May 16th, 2017Michael Riesman and Ensemble Signal celebrate Philip Glass as you drink wine on the stage of the Miller Theater and enjoy music up close and personal. Glass' ritualistic beats and his emerging structures were hypnotic.
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Lady Bird and Fireworks at Hunter Opera Front Page
21st Century Musical Takes
By: - May 13th, 2017Lady Bird Johnson is now known for her signature role in the beatification of America, but as her husband prepared for his 1964 Presidential campaign, in which he crushed Barry Goldwater, he enlisted the aid of his wife, a Southerner, in wooing voters in the South. Vernacular music enhances the Lady Bird opera and also Fireworks by Kitty Brazelton, in which we see our present through the eyes of the future.
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On Site Opera Presents Mozart Front Page
The Secret Garden
By: - May 13th, 2017On Site Opera is committed to producing in a place that echoes the theme or setting of an opera. The enchanting West Side Community Garden provided the set for an early Mozart opera. The cast was superb, picking tulips, dashing through flowerbeds, all for the seeming purpose of finding love. Where better to look and listen than a garden?
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Met Opera Ends Season with a Bang Front Page
Alagna Sings Cyrano
By: - May 11th, 2017Opera is a form of many pieces. When the set, production, singing and orchestra work together, opera makes its own case. Cyrano de Bergerac realizes the seemingly Sisyphean task beautifully.
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Dianne Wiest as Winnie in Happy Days Front Page
Theatre for a New Audience Presents a Yale Rep Production
By: - May 07th, 2017Happy Days is here again, if not in the Democratic party, perhaps alive and well in Brooklyn. Dianne Wiest plays Samuel Beckett's iconic role with a marvel of tonal and emotional variety. The Theatre for a New Audience Production is mesmerizing.
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Joshua Roman Performs at The Crypt Front Page
Cellist Beams Us Up with Mystery and Spirituality
By: - May 04th, 2017Joshua Roman approaches his cello as a friend and collaborator. The Crypt Sessions invite audiences to be friends and collaborative listeners and to meet and greet on the terrace of the Church of the Intercession as the sun sets. Over delicious foods by Ward 8 and wine selected by Magnum Opus, you find out why your fellow Crypt listeners have come.
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Angel and Echoes at 59E59 Front Page
Henry Naylor's Exploration of Women Warriors
By: - May 03rd, 2017Henry Naylor is known as a comic writer for the British shows Spitting Image, Headcases, Dead Ringers and Alistair McGowan’s Big Impression. In the last three years, he has written three plays about the conflicts in the Middle East that focus on women.
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A Length of Rope at The Muse Front Page
Brooklyn's Home for Circus and Immersive Events
By: - May 02nd, 2017The Muse is a special place in Brooklyn. Angela Buccini founded the space for artists to develop projects and then present them. A Length of Rope features Ariel Schmidtke joined by Strangely, & Above and Beyond Dance on May 5 at 8pm.
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Di Donato in Handel at Carnegie Hall Front Page
Harry Bickett Conducts The English Concert
By: - May 01st, 2017After his patron King George I died, Handel made a big comeback with three operas. Ariodante is the last and glorious. Set in Scotland, it is important to understand that, like the state of Texas in the US, women get killed if they are unfaithful. The culprit here is exonerated. The music and the singing triumph over all.
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The Roundabout by J. B. Priestley Front Page
Witty Words Make You Yearn for the Classes Again
By: - Apr 30th, 2017British plays are presented off-Broadway at the 59E59 Theatres. Currently running is an early JB Priestley play The Roundabout. Wit abounds, as does touching good humor. For a moment we imagine change in British society, but we whirl back to the status quo through lines that often sound like Oscar Wilde.
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Babes in Toyland by MasterVoices Front Page
Kelli O'Hara and Bill Irwin Headline Superb Cast
By: - Apr 29th, 2017Babes in Toyland debuted over a century ago. It has been reprised in many film and TV versions. Now we have it as it started out, as one of the first American musical comedies, a genre in which this country specializes. MasterVoices concocted a delicious concert version at Carnegie Hall.
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Three Generations Curated by Steve Reich Front Page
Bryce Dessner and Nico Muhly st Carnegie Hall
By: - Apr 28th, 2017The fourth and last concert of the Three Generations series that took place in Zankel Hall was dedicated to the third generation: composers Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner. Steve Reich who orchestrated this event, highlighted the composers who contributed to "changing the direction of concert music", as the subtitle further implies and actually unites them under the "same roof".
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Natalie Dessay at Carnegie Hall Front Page
Love Explored from Heaven to Hell
By: - Apr 27th, 2017Hearing this perfectly beautiful voice reminds us of all the pleasure Natalie Dessay has given as an opera performer. As a concert artist, she brings dramatic talent to the words of song writers and adds a soupçon of opera to completely satisfy.
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Anthony Marwood and Les Violons du Roy Front Page
Sheen Center Scene of Extravagant Music-Making
By: - Apr 25th, 2017The intimate 273 seat theatre at the Sheen Center on Bleeker Street is a perfect setting for chamber music. Anthony Marwood and members of Les Violons du Roy performed Strauss, Mozart and Enescu in the intimate space. Opening out from a sextet to an octet, the group became increasingly animated and in fact agitated in a pleasing style, amusing the audience at the end with their passionate bowing and music making.
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Berlin Artists at Carnegie Hall Front Page
Showing the Way to Music's Future
By: - Apr 21st, 2017As the music world becomes omnivorous and all-encompassing, it is terrific to spend an evening with consummate young musicians playing whatever their bliss is and making it ours.
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Tilson Thomas and Gehry's New New World Front Page
Miami Beach Leads the Way to Future of Classical Music
By: - Apr 18th, 2017Frank Gehry babysat for Michael Tilson Thomas in Los Angeles where they both grew up. Now they are building a new world for classical music together.
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Figaro 90210 Front Page
Direct from Hollywood to Broadway (Off)
By: - Apr 12th, 2017Figaro 90210 may mess with Mozart, but he would have loved the result. The updated opera is hilarious. All the singing actors bring to their individual characters voices that are rich and illuminating. Action is packed with gesture, silly and often touching.
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Mason Bates and Mark Campbell's Steve Jobs Front Page
New Opera at Santa Fe Previewed at the Guggenheim
By: - Apr 12th, 2017Mason Bates, one of the most frequently performed contemporary composers, has created an opera about Steve Jobs. Mark Campbell, the go-to librettist for contemporary opera, is Bates' teammate in the (R)evolution of Steve Jobs. A teaser was presented at the Guggenheim Museum’s indispensable and entertaining Works and Process series.
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Can the Metropolitan Opera Survive Front Page
The House is One-Quarter Full
By: - Apr 10th, 2017Sitting in the 7th row of the orchestra at the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday night, in a skimpy house, most of my neighbors had paid between $20 and $37.50 for their tickets. Fortunately for the Met Opera, HD fans have a different take on Met productions than people who like their opera live.
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Michael Tilson Thomas at Carnegie Hall Front Page
San Francisco Orchestra Comes in From the Storm
By: - Apr 08th, 2017The San Francisco Orchestra arrived in New York at 4:30 am on the morning of their first concert. Storms had delayed them, and stormy music formed the center of their magnificent concert at Carnegie Hall. You would never guess that these performers were sleep-challenged as they played John Cage’s Seasons, the Shostakovich Cello Concerto and Bartok’s intimate Concerto for Orchestra, a marvel in its ability to engage and draw us in.
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Three Generations of Composers at Carnegie Front Page
Part, Glass and Reich Featured
By: - Apr 07th, 2017The Deans of Contemporary Music for the past fifty years were represented at Zanekl Hall, in Carnegie Hall. Steve Reich is curating this series of concerts. They are revealing and surprising.
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Conrad Tao Rages at Crypt Front Page
Copland and Rzewski Featured
By: - Apr 06th, 2017Conrad Tao is a fearless performer. He is open to reactions that can be very harsh and cruel, and also very beautiful. The Aaron Copland Piano Sonata that sat in the center of the program is a very calm, contemplative and yearning piece. It is during this almost withheld performance that you can clearly feel Tao’s art.
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Adams and Riley at Carnegie Hall Front Page
Saved by the Bells
By: - Mar 31st, 2017For the past half century our ears and minds have been assaulted with sound. Many of us have ceased to hear. Yet modern composers are creating music to which you must listen to enjoy. They are opening up our ears. This spring, in the intimate Zankel Hall, Carnegie is presenting three generations of contemporary composers led by curator Steve Reich. There is no better way to start listening again. No matter how minimal the style, this music is saved by the marimba and vibraphone bells.
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Janácek's Adventures of Vixen Sharp Ears Front Page
Natural World's Entrance at Manhattan School of Music
By: - Mar 30th, 2017When the Adventurs of Vixen Sharp Ears was selected for the spring opera production at the Manhattan School of Music the prescience in this time of challenge to our climate and natural world could not have been foreseen. Yet watching the moving and charming production this week, the impact of our country’s abandonment of planetary care makes Leoš Janácek's opera all the more touching
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