By James Jorden Revelation comes in the strangest places. Like, for example, I had this eventual moment of clarity about what it was that went wrong in the Lepage Ring, and what do you think sparked it? Of all things, last night’s performance of Ernani at the Met.
Read the rest of this article »By James Jorden Now that it has become apparent that Robert Lepage’s production of the Ring at the Met is a fiasco (too soon? Nah.)… well, anyway, since arguably the production is a dreary, unworkable, overpriced mess whose primary (perhaps only) virtue is that it actually hasn’t killed anyone yet, and since, let’s face it, […]
Read the rest of this article »By: Edna Landau To ask a question, please write Ask Edna. A few nights ago, I attended a musical evening of sorts—not at Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center but at Carolines Comedy Club in New York City. Intrigued by the advertisements I heard on radio station WQXR for its Classical Comedy Contest, I bought two tickets, […]
Read the rest of this article »By Alan Gilbert I’ve recently tried my hand at acrylic painting, and just bought a how-to book that stresses the overriding importance of composition — i.e. form and the use of spatial elements — in a successful work of art. By that measure, I can tell you right now that this blog entry will not […]
Read the rest of this article »By James Jorden The critics’ reaction to Robert Lepage’s new production of Die Walküre at the Met leaves this contrarian reviewer in something of a quandary. Not only was pretty much everybody underwhelmed, but there was a consensus about what (they thought) was wrong: the clunkiness of The Machine, the lack of poetry in the […]
Read the rest of this article »By James Jorden Of course it’s insanity in the current financial climate to suggest that the Met should have done a new production of La fanciulla del West this year, even though it’s a very special case: the centennial of the work’s world premiere, which was also the Met’s first world premiere. In fact, to […]
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