VIEWPOINTS – BAM’s Next Wave continues with a barrage of ninja-like, boundary-pushing offerings (and not all of them involve live performance)

Last week saw BAM’s 2019 Next Wave — so far — at its most daringly eclectic via a barrage of short, ninja-like productions. Collectively (if not individually), they pushed the boundaries of … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – POWER STRIP & ZAUBERLAND: Lincoln Center mounts a pair of nightmarish productions documenting the Syrian refugee experience

Perhaps unintentionally, Lincoln Center has mounted a pair of strikingly compatible productions – one a play, the other essentially a “concept opera” – that bleakly convey the Syrian refugee experience, notably from … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – Lincoln Center’s genre-blurring WHITE LIGHT FESTIVAL commences its 10th anniversary, looking to the past for transcendence

Last week marked the commencement of Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, which this year is celebrating its 10th anniversary. In this incredibly crowded fall theater, dance, and classical music season, what … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – The Gershwins’ PORGY AND BESS receives a sturdy new staging at the Met, led by the superb pairing of Eric Owens and Angel Blue

This afternoon, I caught a performance of the Metropolitan Opera’s new staging of the Gershwins’ 1935 American folk opera Porgy and Bess. The production launched the mighty opera company’s 2019-2020 season … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – Immersive performances that throw in the kitchen sink: LOOKING AT YOU & OSCAR AT THE CROWN

Over the last couple of days, I caught a pair of marvelously excessive immersive performances that had me at once fascinated yet baffled. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Louis Langrée leads a wondrous, endlessly inventive THE MAGIC FLUTE that you can’t miss

Last night at the David H. Koch Theater, I attended a performance of Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute, courtesy of Lincoln Center’s thoughtfully-curated Mostly Mozart Festival (which features not just classical … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – Pride Performances, Part 1: An eclectic bunch that that’s representative of how far we’ve come

If you’re gay, then really the place to be this week is New York City, when and where World Pride festivities not so coincidentally collide with the 50thanniversary of the … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – Robert Lepage’s controversial Ring Cycle at the Met concludes with a brilliantly performed SIEGFRIED & GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG

Tonight marks the closing of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2018-2019 season, which concludes with the final performance of Götterdämmerung, the cataclysmic final opera of Richard Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle. Over the last … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – The eclectic, arousing QUEEN OF HEARTS is quintessential Company XIV

Going to Company XIV shows is very much akin to the Cirque du Soleil experience – you’ll never forget the first time. And if Queen of Hearts happens to be … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – The Met’s season closes with a devastating, musically ravishing DIALOGUES DES CARMÉLITES

Last night, I caught my final production of the Metropolitan Opera season, Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites. The work is widely considered one of the greatest operas of the second half of the … Continue Reading →