Susan Hall
Bio:
Recent Articles:
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Met Orchestra and Levine at Carnegie Music
DeYoung and O'Neill Master Mahler
By: - Jan 24th, 2011The connection between Mozart and Mahler is not immediately apparent, but both pieces chosen for Sunday afternoon's program concern farewells. Mozart's Posthorn Serenade celebrated the end of the school year and the departure of students. Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, the deep sense that the composer had little time to live. Mozart's goodbye was full of musical puns and play, aptly captured by the Maestro and orchestra. The Mahler was sung wrenchingly as the orchestra both set the tone and enriched the songs. The sound at Carnegie is of course incomparable.
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Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera Music
Radvanovsky Offers a New and Satisfying Tosca
By: - Jan 15th, 2011Sondra Radvanovsky debuted as Tosca this week at the Met. If the production is still trying to find its legs, the singers are certainly ready to go and wonderful.
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Renee Fleming Stunning at Carnegie Music
Intimate Concert Performance by Opera Diva
By: - Jan 12th, 2011Renée Fleming swept onto the stage at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday January 11. Her long gold dress with pleated skirt and rhinestone shoulder caps dazzled as did her voice. At the end of the evening with a blizzard forecast, she exclaimed surprise that the house was packed, but no one who heard her sing thought it odd at all. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stayed this audience…†(Herodotus, it turns out, not McKim, White’s etching on the US Post Office Building).
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Timeline Theater Company of the Year Theatre
Wall Street Journal Selects Chicago Theatre
By: - Jan 08th, 2011We have seen O'Neill, Beckett, Mamet, the Brother/Sister plays, and Albee in Chicago this year. We agree with others who find that Chicago has beaten out Broadway as Theater Central USA.
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Met HD La Fanciulla del West Jan. 8 Music
Deborah Voight and Marcello Giordani Star
By: - Jan 06th, 2011The Mahaiwe, Beacon and Clark in the Berkshires will broadcast direct from the Metropolitan Opera this Saturday afternoon. This is the 100th anniversary of the premier of Puccini's opera. It is as exciting today as it was then.
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Virginia Woolf at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre
Tracy Letts and Amy Morton Star To Feb 13
By: - Dec 27th, 2010Put away the nightmare of Taylor and Burton in the Virginia Woolf movie. Dysfunction is not the adjective that comes to mind in the new Chicago production. Instead we are focused on the role of illusion in relationships and encouraged to put aside O'Neill's argument for its necessary role. A rollicking production that celebrates language and keeps the audience laughing at the wit and war that is marriage.
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NYU Skirball Performing Arts Center: Hamlet Theatre
The National Theater Live in HD
By: - Dec 14th, 2010People still yearn to sit in a darkened theater with an audience -- to laugh and cry and applaud together. The marvels of technology now bring premier events from the world over to our backyards. The ticket prices are reasonable and the productions first rate.
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TimeLine Theater Company of Chicago Bubbles Theatre
Mastering the Art of...Everything with Bravado
By: - Dec 12th, 2010Dotting the Chicago theaterscape are a myriad of small theater companies who follow the model of the famous Goodman and Steppenwolf, developing an ensemble group, working together to provide a deep base for production and performance. One of these, TimeLine, focuses on history. They have mounted the world premier of the first play they've commissioned and given a full production. To Master the Art is brilliant.
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Lyric Opera of Chicago Snags Renee Fleming Music
Fleming Named first Creative Consultant
By: - Dec 10th, 2010Soprano Beverly Sills went on from a brilliant stage career to champion opera and music as a superior administrator. Earlier this year, Renee Fleming dismissed her long time public relations maven, a move which suggested that she was contemplating a change from a heavy duty performing schedule to other activities. The Lyric, a brilliant, consistent ensemble company, picked up on the signals and put together a package that will wrap Renee into Chicago. The Met missed out!
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The Metropolitan Opera's Don Carlo in HD Music
Broadcast Featuring Roberto Alagna Dec. 11
By: - Dec 08th, 2010Verdi's most ambitious opera is both wrenching personal and daring political. The composer worked on the opera for 20 years, and it is hard to imagine Aida, Otello and Falstaff without the insights he gained in his struggle to master the piece. The Met Live in HD broadcast will be seen Saturday at the Mahaiwe, Great Barringtion, Beacon Cinema, Pittsfield and the Clark in Williamstown.
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Britten Enchants at Lyric Opera of Chicago Music
Midsummer Night's Dream Wafts By
By: - Nov 24th, 2010Britten and Peter Pears chose Midsummer Night's Dream to reopen their Festival in Aldeburgh. It camps up Shakespeare in a delicious, other-worldly musicscape. Britten’s music is neither tonal nor atonal, but a special musicscape designed for the dream world on stage, a dream within a dream, play within play. Rory Macdonald conducts this Lyric Opera of Chicago production.
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Verdi at Chicago's Lyric Opera Music
Megawattage Singing in The Masked Ball
By: - Nov 19th, 2010The Lyric Opera of Chicago has a way with casting. Like theater in Chicago, the company puts up a matchless ensemble that works together to bring life to operas old and new. This production of The Masked Ball (the Lyric prefers the English translation) is a bit of an exception, even though the mega wattage cast is superb throughout and alone worth hearing. Beware retired singers directing.
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Intermezzo at the New York City Opera Music
Strauss Brilliantly Portrayed
By: - Nov 05th, 2010If only Strauss had had the confidence to fly solo more often, as both composer and librettist. He wanted to be modern and push the envelope. Strauss was often restrained by his partners. But not in Intermezzo, which his regular librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal refused to write because he found the subject matter unseemly. We are given a first rate production of the work at the City Opera until the end of November.
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Leonard Bernstein: New York City Opera Music
A Not So Quiet Place
By: - Nov 02nd, 2010A vibrant, new production of Leonard Bernstein's opera, A Quiet Place, has been mounted by the inventive New York City Opera. Written over decades, its subject matter, which once made people uncomfortable, now seems current, if disturbing. What goes on in people's bedrooms is often a subject in opera, but stories seldom arise from a composer's personal experience. Bernstein bravely faced his demons in this piece, and created a work of art in which the wide-ranging musical styles propel a matching staged drama. The City Opera's production is compelling.
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Filianoti, Antonenko, and Grigolo at the Metropolitan Opera Music
Tenor Treats and Tricks
By: - Oct 29th, 2010We have been treated to three unusually talented tenors in New York in the past weeks: Giuseppe Filianoti in Tales of Hoffmann, Aleksandrs Antonenko in Boris Gudonov, and Roberto Alagna in Cavalleria Rusticana and La Navarraise at Carnegie Hall. Billed higher than any of these, however, is the Met's new tenor phenom, Vittorio Grigolo, who has been heralded in the past in West Side Story, and marks the beginning on his own career singing with his voice-a-like, Luciano Pavarroti. Opera is made to be overdone, but in the case of Grigolo, the Met has hit a new high mark.
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The Opera Orchestra of New York Returns to Carnegie Hall Music
Debutant(e)s Abdrazakov, Alagna, Garanca and Guleghina
By: - Oct 27th, 2010The Opera Orchestra of New York put on two operas, Cavalleria Rustincana and La Navarraise, in a splendid double bill at Carnegie Hall. Many of the world's A list singers were represented. Roberto Alagna had ample opportunity to be a bad boy in two operas about jealousy. His solid, exciting performance bodes well for Don Carlo.
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Boris Godunov: Met Live In HD Music
Stunning New Production
By: - Oct 20th, 2010We watched the dress rehearsal for the HD broadcast of Boris Godunov at the Metropolitan Opera House on Monday. Rene Pape is a great Boris, the tenor "the world has been waiting for" sang Dimitri, the chorus, magnificent throughout. A treat awaits theater goers. In the Berkshires the opera will be screened, on October 23, at the Mahaiwe, in Great Barrington, Beacon Cinema, in Pittsfield, and at the Clark Art Institute, in Williamstown.
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Young People's Chorus at Le Poisson Rouge Music
Kronos Quartet Welcomes VIsitors
By: - Oct 17th, 2010A trip to Le Poisson Rouge is sure to provide great music, new to the ear, but easy to hear and listen to. A wide range of performers and composers are presented here. One of the lynchpins of the place is the Kronos Quartet, which hardly sounds like its been around for thirty years -- except for the skill of its members. We visited recently to hear the Kronos and young visitors from one of New York's premier choruses.
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A Backstory on Hereafter Film
Clint Eastwood's New Film a Tossup
By: - Oct 14th, 2010Hereafter, Clint Eastwood's new film, opens in limited release on October 15 and in general release on the 22nd. Damon talked more about going begging to Ben Affleck for jobs in his appearance on Letterman, but Letterman, not one to show deep emotion often, was clearly moved by the film.
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The Collegiate Chorale at Carnegie Hall Music
James Bagwell, Stephanie Blythe, Erin Morley and Eric Owens Provide Heavy Duty Support
By: - Oct 14th, 2010Difficult Brahms' pieces, the Alto Rhapsody and the German Requiem, were beautifully performed by the Collegiate Chorale at Carnegie Hall. A chorus formed 69 years ago by Robert Shaw, seemed as fresh as tomorrow in these performances, immeasurably enhanced by soloists Stephanie Blythe, Erin Morley and Eric Owens.
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Das Rheingold Newly-Minted at the Metropolitan Opera Music
Live in HD October 9th
By: - Oct 05th, 2010For all the chatter about the ersatz Circque de Soleil sets now on display in the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Das Rheingold, it was more the ear than eyes that were pleased but this production The set's challenges may be overcome in the HD and may also be addressed by the Met as they tweak Wagner for the 21st century. The opera will be presented LIve in HD at a theatre near you on October 9. In the Berkshires it will be view at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington, Beacon Theatre in Pittsfield, and the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown.
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The Social Network Film
Facing Up to Facebook
By: - Sep 28th, 2010Advance reports on "The Social Network," which opens this weekend, report an entertaining and provocative film with a really evil man at its center. This simply isn't so. Yes, the film is terrific, but no, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, is not the sinister character his detractors portray. Neither the film nor his life suggests this.
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The Met Opera HDs at Lincoln Center Music
Third Season of Live in HD
By: - Sep 20th, 2010To celebrate the new Metropolitan Opera season, the Met broadcast free for anyone who could get a seat, 10 performances from season's past. They were some enchanted evenings under the stars and in front of the opera house. The HDs have become an important part of the Met's program to generate new audience. The new season will start soon at The Clark in Williamstown., Beacon Cinema in Pittsfield, and the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington.
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Contemporary Music at Tanglewood Music
A Hotbed of Cutting Edge Music
By: - Aug 15th, 2010There is nothing hard-to-take about the music presented over five days im Osawa Hall at Tanglewood. Under the direction of Gunther Schuller, Oliver Knussen and John Harbison, 20th century composers sing and soar.
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Bruce Norris Premiers at Steppenwolf Theatre
Parallel Universes Explored
By: - Jul 31st, 2010Steppenwolf can be counted on to provoke, engage and first and foremost entertain. Concluding their series on belief, they have gone outside the box, like the recent film Inception, to explore what we do and do not experience and to figure out if we can change anything, including ourselves. A witty and fun evening at the theater in Chicago.
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