Susan Hall
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Recent Articles:
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Berkshire Opera Announces Season Front Page
Exciting Prospects
By: - Feb 07th, 2023The "innovative, clever and thoroughly professional" BERKSHIRE OPERA FESTIVAL (BOF) announces its 2023 season in Great Barrington and Pittsfield, MA, and for the first time in New York City. The only company of its kind in the Berkshire region, BOF produces opera at the highest level under the vision of esteemed co-founders Brian Garman (Artistic Director) and Jonathon Loy (Director of Production). The festival has "destination" status. Others write: "No longer need we confine our opera-going to HD films—now we have the highest quality productions and performers in our own backyard."
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Opera Philadelphia Mounts Credos Front Page
Margaret Bonds and Carl Orff in One Performane
By: - Feb 06th, 2023In one smashing performance, Opera Philadelphia presented two Credos, statements of belief by composers who lived and worked at about the same time, in strikingly different circumstances. Carl Orff survived the Nazi regime in Germany by not protesting. Margaret Bonds grew up in a thriving Chicago art community.
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Irish Repertory Theatre Mounts The Smuggler Front Page
One Man in a Smashing Play
By: - Feb 04th, 2023No small theatrical space is better used than the Irish Repertory Theatre's W. Scott Lucas Studio. The stage fills the room, inviting the audience in. Selections are always apt. Ronan Noone’s The Smuggler is no exception.
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Rhiannon Giddens at Carnegie Hall Front Page
Calling Us Home
By: - Jan 30th, 2023Rhiannon Giddens talks often of being comfortable in the crossroads of her art. The new configuration of Zankel Hall in Carnegie looks like a crossroads. The audience comes from every direction to focus on the world being presented. The stage is a hybrid space where different music from different times can exist side by side.
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Pauline Oliveros Celebration at Zankel Hall Front Page
Claire Chase Invites Listening at Carnegie
By: - Jan 23rd, 2023The 90th birthday of composer Pauline Oliveros was celebrated on Saturday at the newly reconfigured Zankel Hall in Carnegie Hall. The steeply raked seating on two sides of the hall, leading to a central stage area embedded in seats on all four sides, felt like an Oliveros’ creation. We are brought to the hall to listen, deeply.
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David Lang at the Prototype Festival Front Page
A Chamber Opera Based on Ryunosuke Akutagawa Short Stories
By: - Jan 18th, 2023David Lang is not surprisingly a highly educated, impish composer. We can’t take him at face value. Or perhaps we can. Discussing his new opera, presented as part of the Prototype Festival, he said that although he had first been intrigued by Ryunosuke Akutagawa's short stories at age 16, he knows nothing about Japanee culture. Yet he is Japanese.
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Victoria Bond Conducts at the United Nations Front Page
Composer in Stockton, California Performing Ray Charles
By: - Jan 17th, 2023Victoria Bond will conduct at the UN on January 27. The event can be live streamed. She will then travel to Stockton, California for a tribute to Ray Charles .
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Prototype Festival Captures New York Front Page
Forms of New Opera Abound
By: - Jan 12th, 2023All the big opera companies have something to learn from the Prototype Festival, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary.
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Peter Gelb Announces Cut Backs at Met Opera Front Page
General Manager Only One Surprised by Ticket Sales
By: - Dec 28th, 2022It comes as a surprise to noone who attends Met Operas that the House is in trouble. Only Peter Gelb, who at first said that people were asleep after Covid, seems to find the Met Opera's failure to sell tickets news. His response is also odd. The operas he proposes to produce to cure are chamber operas unsuited to an opera house too large for our times.
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St. John the Divine Hosts AMOP Front Page
Julia Bullock and Christopher Reif Re-Design El Nino
By: - Dec 26th, 2022Julia Bullock and the American Modern Opera Project brought a new version of John Adams’ and Peter Sellars' El Nino to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, known for its support of the arts and blessing of all animals. This will become a traditional performance.
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Becky Nurse of Salem at Lincoln Center Front Page
Sarah Ruhl Tackles Witchery
By: - Dec 20th, 2022Women have often been called witches and other words that rhyme. What insights can we glean today about the trials held in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts? Playwright Sarah Ruhl tackles the question.
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Hand Shadow Puppetry by Steven Wendt Front Page
HERE Presents Phil Soltanoff, Director
By: - Dec 12th, 2022This and That delights. The production also raises questions: Can a serious effort be delivered with casual aplomb? Great beauty? Mystery? From a messy theater? In the hands of Philip Soltanoff and Steven Wendt, the answer is a resounding Yes.
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Metropolitan Opera Website Down Front Page
Never Underestimate Putin and Netrebko
By: - Dec 09th, 2022The Metropolitan Opera website is down for the third day in a row. Griner freed. Met Opera now captive?
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Art Bath in New York Front Page
Daring New Creations at the Blue Building
By: - Dec 07th, 2022On a drawing board of mixed media, live at the Blue Building on 44th Street, Art Bath gives New York talent a chance to experiment. Six times a year, twice in the spring and twice in the fall, Art Bath presents programs in which artists mix and match new and daring forms. These are enchanted evenings.
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Phil Kline's Unsilent Night at MASS MOCA Front Page
Cult Christmas Classic
By: - Nov 30th, 2022Phil Kline's Unsilent Night has been presented in 150+ cities across five continents since its debut 30 years ago on the streets of Greenwich Village. Free as always.
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Boston Modern Orchestra Project's John Corigliano Opera Front Page
Mark Adamo, Librettist. Brilliant work at Jordan Hall
By: - Nov 26th, 2022Leave it to Gil Rose, Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera to present one of the most important operas of the last decade. At Jordan Hall in Boston, Rose and his company gave a superb concert production of John Corigliano’s “Lord of the Cries.” Commissioned by Santa Fe Opera, this was its east coast debut. Corigliano’s first opera, The Ghost of Versailles met with consistently rave reviews and was not performed often after its premiere. Corigliono swore off the form. He wanted to write music that was heard.
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Michael Cunningham's The Hours for Opera Front Page
The Author Loves Philip Glass and Awaits Kevin Puts
By: - Nov 22nd, 2022Before he writes in the morning, Michael Cunningham as always listened to PHilip Glass's music. Serendiptiy brought Glass's score to the Stephen Daldry film based on Cunningham's book, The Hours. He discusses the works with Berkshire Fine Arts.
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Kevin Puts' New Opera Opens Front Page
Starry Trio of Renee Fleming, Joyce Di Donato and Kelli O'Hara
By: - Nov 23rd, 2022OUT magazine suggested an opera based on the film The Hours back in 2014. At the time, Fabian Brathwaite wrote: (wishful thinking) Based on Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the 2002 Stephen Daldry film is basically two hours of “EMOTION!” Tears, breakdowns, more tears and a prosthetic nose — ingredients for operatic gold. And look no further for casting. Just give Meryl three weeks and a pack of lozenges. Renee Fleming now takes on Meryl Streep's role.
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John Corigliano Premiere at Jordan Hall Front Page
Anthony Roth Costanzo Stars
By: - Nov 15th, 2022The Lord of Cries is a mélange of two classic literary works written two millennia apart: the Greek tragedy The Bacchae by Euripides, and the Gothic novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Set in Victorian London at the fearsome time of Jack the Ripper, the opera begins with its title character – Dionysus, the god of fury – returning to earth. Anthony Roth Costanzo featured.
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Young Concert Artists Announces Winners Front Page
Annual Competition Winners Live Streaming
By: - Nov 14th, 2022Four First Prize Winners have been announced following the Finals of the 2022 Young Concert Artists International Auditions:
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Berlin Philharmonic Entertains at Carnegie Hall Front Page
Kirill Petrenko Helps Make Mahler Fun
By: - Nov 11th, 2022The Berlin Philharmonic, inarguably the greatest symphony orchestra in the world, came to New York to show us how much fun music can be. Their showpiece example, the famously tormented Gustav Mahler.
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Chekhov's First Play at the Irish Arts Center Front Page
Chehkov's Methods Revealed in a Romp
By: - Nov 06th, 2022Dead Center: Chekhov’s First Play has had a jam-packed audience in its run at the Irish Arts Center in New York. To be sure the city is crammed with actors who play Chekov roles. This play is a tip to fathoming their secrets. It is also pure fun for any theater goer.
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We, the Innumerable at National Sawdust Front Page
Niloufar Nourbakhsh Captures Iranian Protests
By: - Nov 03rd, 2022We The Innumerable is an opera created by the Iranian/American composer Niloufar Nourbakhash with libretto by Lisa Flanagan. Sara Jobin, who is committed to works which bring about peace and global understanding, conducted. National Sawdust staged. The opera tells the story of a woman who protects the truth at all costs It is set during protests in Iran after a contested election in 2009. It echoes today’s protests.
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Hamlet at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Front Page
A Romp Directed by Thomas Ostenmeier
By: - Oct 29th, 2022If you think spending an evening with Hamlet at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is not your best choice for a fun experience, think again. This production is a hoot. Pure pleasure.
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James Carson at The Crypt Front Page
What to Expect from the Unexpected
By: - Oct 28th, 2022The impresario Andrew Ousley is deeply in touch with audience needs in the 21st century. In selecting dramatic and unusual settings for concerts which range from the most formal performances of classical music’s iconic and ineffably beautiful Goldberg Variations to a completely improvised concert, he helps a new audience open their ears and hearts, and more traditional concert goers to hear works anew.
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