Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – THE BEST OF 2023: Theater, Music, and Dance

• By drediman
• January 3, 2024
• No Comments

With 2023 officially behind us, I’ve taken some time to look back at the year to take stock and assess the performances that have stood out and risen to the top. Although the post-pandemic realities of presenting live performances have posed widespread challenges for many institutions, 2023 nonetheless produced many memorable and worthwhile experiences. Read on for my “best of” lists, as categorized by performance genre.

THEATER

As per usual, most of the most exciting theater this past year took place far from the bright lights of Broadway. In no particular order, here are my top ten theater picks in 2023.

Love (Park Avenue Armory) — One of the most devastating plays of the season, Alexander Zeldin’s Love at the Park Avenue Armory exemplified the power of showing over telling.

Big Trip (La MaMa) — Down at La MaMa, exiled Russian theater maker Dmitry Krymow’s staged a pair of productions — Pushkin “Eugene Onegin” in our own words and Three love stories near the railroad — that thoroughly captured my imagination with their scrappy, voluptuous theatricality.

Wet Brain (Playwrights Horizons) — John J. Caswell, Jr.’s brutal play about family and addiction (not necessarily in that order) thoroughly got under my skin, daring theatergoers to look away from the guts of human depravity and beyond.

Primary Trust (Roundabout Theatre Company) — In one of the year’s most disarmingly transparent stage performances, William Jackson Harper’s low-key portrayal of a man navigating the changes of life in Eboni Booth’s play at Roundabout was (surprisingly) one of the most moving things I came across all year in the theater.

The Comeuppance (Signature Theatre Company) — Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is having a big year — in addition to the Broadway mounting of Appropriate, the playwright also triumphed at Off-Broadway’s Signature Theatre with The Comeuppance, his observant and unforgiving play about friendships and death.

Flex (Lincoln Center Theater) — Last summer, I was exhilarated by Candice Jones’ play about a Southern all-Black girls high school basketball team. Featuring a bevy of scintillating performances from a fierce young cast and pitch-perfect direction by the brilliant Lileana Blain-Cruz, this is the kind of exciting new work we should be seeing on Broadway.

Here Lies Love (Broadway) — The only Broadway show on my best of list, this deliriously immersive, ultimately substantive disco musical about the Marco dictatorship in the Philippines is one of the only new shows to have the balls to try something utterly new on the Great White Way. Way too bad it wasn’t able to find an audience.

I Can Get It for You Wholesale (Classic Stage Company) — Gloriously led by the dashing Santino Fontana, this timely and luxuriously cast Classic Stage Company production gets my pick for most satisfying musical revival of the year.

Stereophonic (Playwrights Horizons) — Charged with a set of stellar new songs by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler, David Adimi’s play — both stylish and raw (and the second top finisher for Playwrights Horizons) — relentlessly charted the ups and downs of artistic creation.

Life & Times of Michael K (St. Ann’s Warehouse) — Over at St. Ann’s Warehouse, I encountered the stage adaptation of J.M. Coetzee’s novel, which turned out to be one of the most powerful productions of the year. Who says that puppet theater is just for kids?

OPERA AND CLASSICAL MUSIC

In terms of classical music, this past year saw a rich array of experiences via established talents, thoughtful new works/productions, and the rise of the next crop of superstars. In no particular order, here are my top ten opera and classical music picks for in 2023.

MƆɹNIŊ[MORNING//MOURNING] (Prototype) — At this year’s Prototype festival back in January, Gelsey Bell radically encapsulated human history and the cosmos beyond in her audacious new work.

The rise of Lise Davidsen — With a gleaming voice as epically scaled as they come, opera’s new “it” girl — Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen — in a year of acclaimed New York appearances, notably Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and her Met recital debut.

Women on the podium — This year featured a number of spectacular New York Philharmonic concerts that featured women conductors — namely Marin Alsop, Susanna Mälkki, and Mira Grazinyte-Tyla — incisively leading from the podium. Dudamel aside, when will we finally get a woman music director at the Philharmonic?

Don Giovanni (The Metropolitan Opera) — Divisive auteur director Ivo van Hove brought thoughtful restraint and keen perspective to his new staging of the Mozart opera. Finally, the Met has a keeper of a production of this deeply problematic vet musically ravishing opera.

Kagami (The Shed) — In this immersive, intimate virtual “concert” by the late pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto at The Shed, technology and music collided in poetic and unexpected ways.

The ubiquitous David Lang — No matter where you looked, it seemed like David Lang was there. This year, his new opera Note to a Friend, ballet score for Pam Tanowitz’s Song of Songs, and the return of his Pulitzer Prizewinning oratorio The Little Match Lang mesmerized with their distilled humanism.

Handel’s Messiah (Trinity Wall Street) — This Christmastime, Trinity Wall Street’s acclaimed Messiah once again proved the mettle of this extraordinary presentation, bringing communal urgency to Handel’s warhorse oratorio.

Doppelganger (Park Avenue Armory) — Once again over at the massive Park Avenue Armory, director Claus Guth and international superstar tenor Jonas Kaufman brought theatrical specificity and existential intensity to Schubert’s Schwanengesang (“Swan Song”).

A bittersweet farewell to Mostly Mozart (Lincoln Center) — This year saw the shuttering of Lincoln Center’s beloved summertime festival (at least as we knew it), proving that all good things, indeed, do come to an end. In his bittersweet final concerts, longtime maestro Louis Langrée didn’t seem to want to let go.

Yunchan Lim, Superstar — In his New York Philharmonic debut, the preternaturally gifted 19-year-old pianist from South Korea galvanized in his rendition of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3. A star is born.

DANCE

As headlined by New York City Ballet’s landmark 75th anniversary season and Van Cleef & Arpels’ city-engulfing Dance Reflections festival, this past year turned out to be an exceptional year for dance. In no particular order, here are my top dance picks in 2023.

NYCB at 75 (New York City Ballet) — The centerpiece of the fall dance calendar was probably New York City Ballet’s all-Balanchine’s 75th anniversary fall season, which was perhaps best represented by a literally sparkling opening week of performances of Balanchine’s Jewels.

Copland Dance Episodes (New York City Ballet) — Continuing on the NYCB train, Justin Peck’s gorgeous expansion and reconsideration of his beloved one act ballet Rodeo — now appended to include Copland’s iconic ballet scores for Appalachian Spring and Billy the Kid — resulted in this transcendent evening of pure dance enchantment.

Alexei Ratmasky’s Giselle (United Ukraine Ballet) — At the Kennedy Center, the United Ukranian Ballet performed Ratmansky’s gorgeously moving version of Giselle, emphatically proving the resilience of art and humanity in the face of devastation.

Like Water for Chocolate (American Ballet Theatre) — American Ballet Theatre’s big premiere of 2023 was Christopher Wheeldon’s evening length dance adaptation of Like Water for Chocolate, a big risk that proved to be an artistic success. Throughout, Wheeldon managed the work’s sprawling narrative with elegance and theatrical invention.

Pam Tanowitz’s Song of Songs (New York City Center) — Pam Tanowitz followed up her exquisite Four Quartets with Song of Songs, an equally compelling impressionistic full length work. Set to David Lang’s chant-like score, the work was quietly riveting — a revealing choreographic interpretation of the Biblical text.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (New York City Center) — Despite the abrupt departure of Alvin Ailey artistic director Robert Battle, the company looked to be in uncommonly terrific shape during its meaty fall/winter season at City Center — powerful, stylish, and commanding, particularly in contemporary classics by Jamar Roberts, Kyle Abraham, and Alonzo King.

Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring (Park Avenue Armory) — Pina Bauch’s now classic take on the seminal Stravinsky ballet score was anything but safe. As animated by a company of African dancers from 14 countries, the performance — one of the flagship offerings of this fall’s expansive Dance Reflections festival, courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels — was nothing less than earth-shaking.

(La)Horde’s Room with a View (NYU Skirball) — Along with the aforementioned performance of The Rite of Spring at the Armory, the other indelible highlight of Van Cleef & Arpels’ Dance Reflections festival was (La)Horde’s defiant, in-your-face performance of Room With a View, another earth-shaker.

Broken Chord (Brooklyn Academy of Music) — Seen as part of BAM’s Next Wave Festival, Broken Chord was a resonant, deeply human piece of documentary dance theater that felt as timely as it did timeless.

How to Be a Dance in 72,000 Easy Lessons (St. Ann’s Warehouse) — This fall, St. Ann’s Warehouse played host to another compelling piece of dance theater, How to Be a Dance in 72,000 Easy Lessons — Michael Keegan-Dolan’s irresistibly quirky and candid autobiographical view of life in the world of dance.

CABARET AND OTHER MUSIC

New York wouldn’t be New York without its vibrant cabaret and music scene. In no particular order, here are my top picks for cabaret and other music in 2023, a lineup that’s as eclectic and exciting as the city that presented them.

Jennifer Holliday (54 Below) — The Dreamgirls Ton-winner was in thrilling voice in her cabaret show, one of 54 Below’s exclusive Diamond Series presentations. Suffice to say, her rendition of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” blew the roof off the classy theater district supper club.

Marilyn Maye (Carnegie Hall) — Astonishingly, Marilyn Maye’s appearance with the New York Pops marked her first appearance at Carnegie Hall. Ever young and still possessing a voice of steel, the 94-year-old cabaret legend’s concert was a thorough love fest.

Samara Joy (Village Vanguard) — In her intimate concert at the Village Vanguard, young Grammy-winner Samara Joy captivated with her instinctual jazz song stylings and captivating, grounded personality. There’s quite a future here.

Natalie Joy Johnson (The Green Room 42) — Natalie Joy Johnson’s birthday concert at The Green Room 42 was an ecstatic example of when more is definitely more. But if you’re familiar with Ms. Johnson — a love child between Bette Middler and Bridget Everett — you already know that. It was nice to have her back on our coast.

Mamie Parris (The Green Room 42) — In her relentless “thrill ride” tribute to the Andrew Lloyd Webber songbook — also at The Green Room 42 — this one time Broadway Grizabella sang her face off, carelessly flinging her thrilling high belt about as if there was no tomorrow.

Norbert Leo Butz (54 Below) — In a decidedly subdued show at 54 Below, Tony-winner Norbert Leo Butz was in an introspective post-pandemic mood, in fascinating contrast to his typically boisterous cabaret outings.

Jackie Hoffman (Joe’s Pub) — Anything but subdued was this bespctacled funny lady’s appearance at Joe’s Pub, a hilarious, anything goes show that outrageously offended more often not. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Rizo (Joe’s Pub) — Formerly known as Lady Rizo, this downtown nightlife entertainer has always been known for being an extravagant performer. And even if she’s toned things down as she’s matured, this big-voiced diva still knows how to hold court as only she can.

Arca (Park Avenue Armory) — Straddling performance art and pop music, this evolving gender fluid cult pop star performed her latest concert — the beguiling concoction entitled Mutant;Destrudo — at the Park Avenue Armory’s cavernous drill hall. All in all, the experience was a surreal fever dream that I still find myself thinking back on.

Laurie Anderson (Brooklyn Academy of Music) — Speaking of performance art, the iconic, probing singer-songwriter Laurie Anderson made a rare New York appearance this past year, kicking off BAM’s Next Wave Festival in an unusually upbeat manner. Does she know something we don’t?