Category Archives: Opera
No sword in the head
During the dress rehearsal yesterday (Wednesday) of Monkey: Journey to the West, one of the sword dancers lost his grip, sending his sword into the orchestra pit. He looked really worried, as did two of the producers, who scrambled over to the pit while everyone else carried on to see what the damage was.
By the [...]
Another Book review
Another review of Friday’s world premiere of Book of Longing drops in Toronto, this one from the Globe and Mail. The wrap graf:
“In the end, Book of Longing was a chance worth taking, and enjoyable to witness. You could hear the two participants greeting each other across their different disciplines, if not always embracing. It [...]
Is it opera? Or music theatre? Or both?
Blog reader Wendy Gleim, who’s hosting the private post-performance party for composer Philip Glass and his Book of Longing posse at her Ashley Avenue home on Friday, sends along an excellent feature from the Toronto Globe and Mail about Glass from last week, written just prior to that city’s world premiere of Glass’ new work [...]
Starred Book review
There’s finally a review of Philip Glass’ new work Book of Longing from its Friday night world premiere at Toronto’s Luminato Arts Festival. Writing for the Toronto Star, columnist Greg Quill seems to have mixed feelings about the work, which had Leonard Cohen in attendance for its opening. Cohen’s new book of poetry and drawings, [...]
L’ile de Merlin welcomes a new character: Barry
In a post yesterday evening, New York Times blogger James Oestreich writes about the renovations Spoleto is undertaking of Memminger Auditorium and, once the festival is over, the Dock Street Theatre. He notes that the Dock Street will be out of commission for the next two festivals, and all its programming is to be directed [...]
Our foreign correspondance
The New York Times’ James R. Oestreich continues to be the sole representative of the major U.S. news media in town for the festival. Ironically, the Toronto Globe and Mail seems to be the only other out-of-towner with a reporter, Paula Citron, on the streets of Charleston for some critical reportage – possibly because that [...]
But wait, there’s more!
With the openings of Shen Wei Dance Arts and Major Bang in the rear-view mirror (I caught only the latter of those two last night; I’ll see Shen Wei tomorrow night), the Big Festival is plowing through its slate of yet-to-be-seen productions and turning them into continuing-through productions. On tonight’s docket: the opening of medEia, [...]
A soprano with her eyes on the prize
At the swanky post-performance party last night for Shen Wei Dance Arts and the Major Bang gang, hosted at the State Street Home of Susan Bass and Tom Bradford, a lively conversation with local marketing maharishi Gretchen Barbatsis centered around a little-reported piece of trivia regarding one of the L’ile de Merlin singers. Barbatsis is [...]
Music man
Thursday morning’s tribute concert to Gian Carlo Menotti played to a Sottile Theatre that was stuffed to the exit signs with memorializers and, let’s be frank, those who didn’t care much about Menotti one way or the other but were only too happy to take in a free concert by the SFO. I’d wager that [...]
Getting forensic on Spoleto 2007
The 31st Spoleto Festival USA is officially in the past tense. It’s now time to get forensic on the thing. But that’s less easy than it sounds. Part of the difficulty in summing up the festival after the fact lies in its nature; as Mayor Riley noted during the mid-festival tribute to founder Gian Carlo [...]