Susan Hall
Bio:
Recent Articles:
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Kioi Sinfonietta Tokyo at Alice Tully Hall Music
Thierry Fischer Leads a Celebration of Cherry Blossoms
By: - May 04th, 2012The Japanese group of fabulous musicians is debuting in the US as they raise money for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami.
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Cutting Edge Operas by Wiprud and Sirota Music
Robert Browning and Boccaccio Stories Featured
By: - May 02nd, 2012Victoria Bond concluded her lively and provocative Cutting Edge concerts with two one act operas about ladies who scan passions far from the marital bed. In The Last Dutchess, Lucrezia has her head cut off. Lessons are learned by the time the second opera opens. The Clever Mistress, solicting help in the confession booth and taking advantage of her tottering husband's business obligations, gets off scot free.
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Juilliard Presents Don Giovanni Music
Stephen Wadsworth at the Helm
By: - Apr 29th, 2012The opera of all operas Don Giovanni is among other things the perfect vehicle to display up and coming talent. Stephen Wadsworth, a man of many hats who directed this production as the head of the Opera Studies department at the Juilliard School of Music.
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John Corigliano's Ghost of Versailles Music
Manhattan School of Music Brings the Ghosts to Life
By: - Apr 27th, 2012An opera mounted too seldom is everything you could want in the Manhattan School's production. This subversive opera pricks our understanding of history, of stories and of opera itself. Early on, the audience knowingly laughed when it was suggested on stage that opera was boring. There was nothing boring about the proceedings in uptown Manhattan.
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Diane Keaton, Christopher Plummer and Zac Efron in Dog Movies Film
Hollywood Finds Dogs Irresistible
By: - Apr 24th, 2012Apparently film producers perk up their ears when they hear the word 'dog' in a pitch, but dogs in films do not guarantee a good film. In one week I saw three dogs: My Dog Tulip, Darling Companion and The Lucky One. Or is that movies about dogs?
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Peter Gelb Extends the Metropolitan Opera's Domain Opinion
The Great White Way is a New Model
By: - Apr 22nd, 2012Marketing into the Hollywood style and also Broadway musicals, Peter Gelb may have happened upon a solution to developing a new opera audience. Maybe.
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Cutting Edge Music at Manhattan's Symphony Space Music
Victoria Bond Presents Contemporary Composers
By: - Apr 18th, 2012Victoria Bond makes a case for the accessibility of contemporary music as the Great Noise Ensemble interprets. Her delightful short chamber piece, Coqui, concluded the first part of the program.
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Gotham Chamber Opera Presents Mozart Music
Il Sogno di Scipione Staged by Christopher Alden
By: - Apr 12th, 2012A lively production and great singing make early Mozart come to life in this revived production by the Gotham Chamber Opera.
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The Collegiate Chorale at Carnegie Hall Music
His Imperial Majesty Arrives in the Mikado
By: - Apr 11th, 2012Not a minute passes over the whole world in which The Mikado is not being produced. Gilbert and Sullivan's arguably best but inarguably fun operetta was created quickly in the shadow of a Japanese executioner's sword.
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Anna Caterina Antonacci at Lincoln Center Music
A Great Singer at Alice Tully Hall
By: - Apr 10th, 2012Hearing Antonacci sing is like winning the lotto. She is not often in the US and catching her when she is reveals why her reputation as one of the world's great soprano-mezzos is so well-deserved.
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Yale at Carnegie for April Fool's Day Music
The De Profundis Program Became De Gaudeum
By: - Apr 02nd, 2012World class performers who teach at Yale and often perform in the Berkshires during the summer took to the stage at Carnegie in New York and whipped up music for the ages, tooting sackbuts and all.
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Michael Tilson Thomas Continues with His Mavericks Music
Carnegie Hall Hosts Partch, Bates, Del Tredici and Harrison
By: - Apr 01st, 2012We have had time to appreciate maverick composers of the 20th century. Now they often seem distinctively beautiful. Instruments are a treat for the eye. The music fully engages. Michael Tilson Thomas is a daring and committed conductor.
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Siman Media Works Launches XCIA's Street Art Project Photography
Howard Greenberg Gallery Presents the Art, Book and App
By: - Mar 30th, 2012With street art taking an important place on the walls of the Howard Greenberg Gallery, the author, XCIA aka Hank O'Neal roaming with his camera, and cutting edge publisher Ken Siman talking up EbooksExtreme, a terrific new book documenting street art over a 40 year period was launched in style. An innovative app follows.
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Opera Notes: Peter Gelb Controlling the Message Music
Does the Met Deserve Great Divas Dessay, Mattila, Blythe?
By: - Mar 29th, 2012Diva after diva arrives at the Met this spring. Their quality is uneven, but if they are thin and pretty, the General Manager., Peter Gelb, hopes can sell tickets. Even if they can't sing, or when they do, occasionally, they are off pitch.
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Michael Tilson Thomas Brings Mavericks to Carnegie Hall Music
Jessye Norman, Joan La Barbara, Meredith Monk, John Adams, All Live.
By: - Mar 28th, 2012If you wonder how to get young people into a classical concert, just follow the San Francisco Symphony and its peerless leader. If Tilson Thomas was not born into a famous theater family, we probably wouldn't be treated to such exciting concerts.
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St. John Passion at Carnegie with Bernard Labadie Music
Ian Bostridge a wonderful Evangelist with Les Violins du Roy
By: - Mar 26th, 2012The St. John Passion is always placed after the St. Matthew in Bach's greats. Bernard Labadie led a performance that showed it special and fine features.
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Thomas Hampson: Mastersinger Music
The Metropolitan Opera Guild Honors a Great Baritone
By: - Mar 23rd, 2012Thomas Hampson is committed to music, as a performer, a researcher, a promoter of all American music. The Metropolitan Opera Guild put on an evening honoring him, and his unique contributions to opera and music education.
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Rinde Eckert Creates Melville's Great Whale Theatre
A Classic Opera out of Pittsfield into New York
By: - Mar 22nd, 2012Rinde Eckert is an extraordinary artist, a writer, composer, singer, actor. Just name his talent. A testament to the creative process, and to the tentative triumph of love over hate.
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Cosi Fan Tutte at the New York City Opera Music
Christopher Alden Directs the Opera for Today
By: - Mar 19th, 2012George Steel, general manager of City Opera, remarked that Mozart works best in medium-size theaters. Certainly in the Lynch Theater the current production of Cosi Fan Tutte thrives. Across the boards, it is terrific.
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Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time Music
An Important Remembrance in this Season of Renewal
By: - Mar 12th, 2012First performed in a German prison camp where the French composer Olivier Messiaen had written the Quartet, a small group of first-rate musicians gathered to present Quartet for the End of Time in New York..
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The Boston Symphony Conducted by Christoph Eschenbach Music
A Carnegie Triumph
By: - Mar 09th, 2012A French program that looked at first like your usual fare was turned into an evening of fabulous music by the Symphony, many of its members soloists, an exciting conductor, and a brilliant young French pianist, Cedric Tiberghein.
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Khovanshchina and Opera Notes Music
In Sync with The New Yorker
By: - Mar 07th, 2012The Metropolitan Opera has put on Khovanshshina, a wonderful opera by Modest Mussorgsky, with a stellar cast including Mr. and Mrs. Abdrazakov, he Ildar, and she the great mezzo Olga Boradina. Boradina has never sounded better, her lower depths are unusually rich. Abdrazakov was positively Buddhist as a priest of the old guard. His voice was magnificent, but his handsome face was marred by an ersatz Marx Brothers beard. Kirill Petrenko conducted with passion and subtlety.
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Calixto Bieito Brings Camino Real to Chicago Theatre
A Provocative Williams at the Goodman Theater
By: - Mar 06th, 2012What was Williams thinking and feeling is the first question a director like Calixto Bieito asks. And he is not afraid to go where the answers lead him. A sad and yet exhilarating production of Camino Real at the Goodman.
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Handel's Rinaldo Wins at the Lyric Opera Music
Daniels, Davies, Pisaroni, Prina, Kleiter, Van Den Heever, First Among Equals
By: - Mar 05th, 2012Everyone is excited about opera in Chicago. Rinaldo was in the works before the arrival of Anthony Freud, the new General Manager. Clearly he is poised to continue the great record of his predecessor, William Mason.
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Radvanovsky Arrives at the Met Early Music
James Levine is still Music Director
By: - Feb 29th, 2012Unexpectedly Met audiences were treated to Sondra Radvanovsky as Aida; in announcing the new season, Mr. Gelb ignored the Levine problem; Chicago announces a world premier, and so it goes.
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