Susan Hall
Bio:
Recent Articles:
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A Particularly Cunning Vixen Arrives at Juilliard Music
Julia Bullock Makes Her Mark in the Title Role
By: - May 01st, 2013Conducting, Anne Manson displays a mastery of music and drama that should have a much broader audience. Julia Bullock, a young soprano phenom, won first prize in the Young Concert Artists Competition of 2012. Peter Sellars has taken note, and cast her in Purcell’s The Indian Queen at the Teatro Real in Madrid this fall.
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Mahagonny at the Manhattan School of Music Music
Aaron Short and Rachelle Pike Whet Appetite for the Future
By: - Apr 29th, 2013An iconic broken down truck is sitting on stage, so we know three escaping criminals will soon build Mahagonny. Behind a hospital-like dividing curtain, a flophouse will later cast off silhouettes of sex acts. Mahagonny will be a new Sodom & Gomorrah, or maybe even New York in the Age of the Derivative.
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The New York City Opera Returns to City Center Opinion
Rossini and Offenbach Fresh and Full of Life
By: - Apr 24th, 2013This spring the New York City Opera has returned to its roots at City Center in New York. Rossini’s Moses in Egypt was first up, and beautifully done. One of the grand themes of human history, the Exodus, was presented with appropriate grandeur.
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Making Books Sing Creates Fear and Joy Theatre
Wanda's Monster is Not So Terrible
By: - Apr 21st, 2013Monsters have always intrigued. They have come multithreaded and multifooted. They have combined lion, snake and goat. But over time they have come to look more and more like us, just larger and hairier.
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Collapse by Women's Project Theater Theatre
Allison Moore, a Gifted Young Playwright
By: - Apr 17th, 2013The Women’s Project Theater can be counted on for a thoroughly engaging evening of theater. They do this by tackling the most disturbing and important issues of our time with a novel flair and often high humor. Only at the end of Collapse do we realize that we have been at the heart of our world today, a world in which the center has trouble holding as we keep turning in the widening gyre.
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Women of Will, The Complete Journey Theatre
Tina Packer's Brilliant NY Take on Shakespeare's Women
By: - Apr 15th, 2013Tina Packer’s The Complete Journey through the Women of Will starts with “Warrior Women, from Violence to Negotiation." These martial women, driven by revenge, women who Shakespeare seems to hold out from himself and from us. The traveling production is staged at New York's The Gym at Judson through June.
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Eve Queler's Opera Orchestra of New York Music
Michael Fabiano, a World Class Tenor, in I Lombardi by Verdi
By: - Apr 09th, 2013Eve Queler introduced the Opera Orchestra of New York at Carnegie Hall in 1972 with Verdi’s I Lombardi. Featured in the cast were Jose Carreras, Renata Scotto and Paul Plishka in a memorable performances. Queler has continued to offer wonderful productions of seldom heard operas featuring stars, up and coming stars, and newbies. Her contribution to the music world has been incalculable.
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Extraordinary BSO Conducted by Daniele Gatti Music
Carnegie Welcomes a Tribute to Richard Wagner
By: - Apr 07th, 2013Daniele Gatti arrived at Carnegie Hall with the Boston Symphony Orceshtra for their annual spring visit. Gatti had recently triumphed at the Metropolitan Opera conducting Parsifal in a consummate performance. Katrina Dalayman, the Met’s Kundry, reports that the group of mega stars gathered to sing were exceptionally collaborative, guided by Gatti, emailing back and forth. This group effort showed on the stage with the BSO.
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Peter Gelb Elevated to Artistic Director of the Met Opinion
Gelb Makes Announcment in NY TImes
By: - Mar 31st, 2013Peter Gelb, recently elevated to artistic director of the Metropolitan Opera, has orchestrated an 9000-word piece in the magazine section of the New York Times defending against wide spread criticism of his regime. With no formal education or qualifications to make aesthetic decisions Gelb told the Times that music is in his genes.
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Joe Rosen Showcases Piano Prodigy Music
Maxim Lando Plays Like a Developed Musician
By: - Mar 14th, 2013Another fantastic afternoon concert at generous Joseph Rosen’s, just around the corner from Carnegie. Rosen, in addition to innovative programming which often introduces deserving but not well-known composers, also showcases up and coming talent.
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Norma Arrives at the Washington National Opera Music
Angela Meade and Dolora Zajick Mesmerize
By: - Mar 11th, 2013Norma is the long distance run for great bel canto sopranos and mezzos too. By that high standard, Angela Meade and Dolora Zajick hit their marks as the Washington National Opera mounted a new production of the Bellini opera.
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The Faux-Real Theatre Company Comes to La Mama Theatre
Oedipus Rex XX/XY
By: - Mar 09th, 2013Oedipus Rex as conceived by the Faux-Real Theater Company is true to the original, although the producers say "sort of." A play in which Son kills Dad and then marries Mom with whom he begets half brothers and sisters provides latitude. Even though Oedipus is played by an actress and Jocasta by an actor, the brew has already been mixed and turned upside down by the time the play starts. The Faux-Real troop provides a classic take with brilliant winks.
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Nobel Author Jelinek Deconstructs Jackie O Theatre
Tina Benko Compels at Women's Project Theatre
By: - Mar 04th, 2013Tina Benko’s performance as Jackie in the play of the same name by Elfriede Jelinek, is a turn for the ages. Beat by beat, swoop by swoop, dashes and arrested moments, Benko holds us in her sway. Every surprising comic opportunity is subtly presented.
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A Meistersinger for the Ages at Lyric Chicago Music
Johan Botha Shows His Stuff
By: - Feb 22nd, 2013David McVicar’s Meistersinger, produced originally at Glynebourne and shared by San Francisco and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, is a smashing presentation of this Wagner opera, often cited as one of the great works of world culture, and for good reason. In its humanity, wit, the wonderful orchestral sounds and its evocation of the longest day of the year in Nurnberg in the early 19th century Meistersinger is glorious.
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A Great Parsifal at the Metropolitan Opera Music
Rene Pape is Brilliant
By: - Feb 17th, 2013Wagner called his last opera Parsifal a stage consecrating festival play, not an opera at all. In this brilliant staging at the Metropolitan Opera, a joint effort with the Opera National de Lyon and Canadian Opera Company, just the right tone is struck for Parsifal’s quest. Francois Giraud clearly understands opera, the mission of a designer to put the music front and forward.
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A Delicate Balance by Edward Albee Theatre
McCarter Theatre Mounts a Fresh Take
By: - Feb 10th, 2013A Delicate Balance, directed by Emily Mann at the McCarter Theater, etches the cost of buried feelings. Albee, who attended rehearsals in Princeton and delivers the opening announcement on the intercom, wrioe that the play is about “the rigidity and ultimate paralysis which afflicts those who settle in too easily, waking up one day to discover that all the choices they have avoided no longer give them freedom of choice and what choices they have left are beside the point.â€
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Andris Nelsons at the New York Philharmonic Music
On Wish List for Boston Symphony Orchestra
By: - Feb 08th, 2013Andris Nelsons, who helms the Birmingham Symphony in England, is everywhere these days. He can pick and choose his venues, but the big, tantalizing question is Boston. He conducted there last week and early this week and reports that the acoustics in Symphony Hall are superb. Members of the BSO do not hide their enthusiasm for this thoroughly musical young man.
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Tina Packer's Women of Will Erupts in New York Theatre
Lust Braided with Erudition
By: - Feb 03rd, 2013What a piece of work these Women of Will in the hands of self-proclaimed 21st century feminist Tina Packer. The wicked Kate, martial Joan and Margaret, Juliet full of sensuous desire, Desdemona, no ninny, but a defiant daughter brimming over with lust who tells Daddy she is leaving him for his best friend, a black man no less. Tina Packer is a theatrical wizard.
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Bethany Brilliant at City Center Stage II Theatre
America Ferrara Tops Off First Rate Cast
By: - Jan 19th, 2013The Women's Project Theater has a new home at City Center. This first rate production of a play by Laura Marks bodes well for their future. Performances throughout are of the highest order. Direction by Gaye Taylor Upchurch highlights the thrust and parry of edgy relationships and displays the wit, humor and pathos of the language.
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A Crucible Deconstructed Theatre
Miller, Misfits, Monroe, Clift, Warhol and Pregnant Teens
By: - Jan 14th, 2013Deconstruction was not the intent of this wild play, but if you needed to follow its elements to understand the real purpose, looking at theatrical 'zones' over time. While there were compelling performances, and many enjoyable elements to this production, an enjoyable whole was not the sum of its parts.
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The Wonderful Wizard of Song Theatre
Music of Harold Arlen at NY's St. Luke's Theatre
By: - Jan 11th, 2013Harold Arlen’s career spanned the 20th century, so it is not surprising that he wrote the song most often awarded best of the last hundred years, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.†This song alone could open our hearts to this new production showcasing Arlen’s work.
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Opera Orchestra of New York Music
Roberto Alagna as Andrea Chenier
By: - Jan 07th, 2013Concert performances of opera are a wonderful chance to concentrate on singers and the orchestra. Eve Queler, the founder of OONY, has always delivered with aplomb. She does in Andrea Chenier.
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Met Opera General Manager Peter Gelb Tests Limits Music
100 Million Dollar Bond Offering by The Met
By: - Jan 03rd, 2013For the first time in its history, the beleaguered Metropolitan Opera, through Morgan Stanley, offered 100 million dollars worth of bonds for sale. Moody's Investors Service noted that the Met's advantages and disadvantages are the same: a dependency on board and patron support.
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David Hayes Conducts New York Choral Society Music
Carnegie Hall Debut with Higdon and Berlioz
By: - Dec 20th, 2012The New York Choral Society welcomed their new Music Director David Hayes with an unusual, apt and perfectly programmed evening. Herod’s aria was sung beautifully by Richard Bernstein, who humanizes the tyrant without erasing from your memory that he murdered his wife. A play written about the same time that the oratorio was composed also made Herod more complex and real.
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The Chamber Music Society Giftwraps Bach Music
A Joyous Celebration
By: - Dec 17th, 2012Bach packaged his six concertos called “Brandenburg†when he sent them to the Duke of Margrave, and they are often treated as one. The Chamber Music Society presents them annually as a gift to their followers. And it is always a treat. No holiday wrapping is needed. In the warm, golden wood that hugs Alice Tully Hall, the performers are illuminated on the stage, where they weave their magic.
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