Interludes

THE STATE OF THE ARTS – January 28, 2015

• By drediman
• January 28, 2015
• No Comments

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

• I revisited Sting’s The Last Ship before it sailed off into the sunset and was left floored by the performance (the show left me cold the first time I saw it). The cast seems to have really settled into their roles and the sense of community conveyed on Broadway’s Neil Simon stage left me very moved. My assessment of Sting’s tremendous score remains that it is a masterpiece.
• Over at BAM, the dreamy Sufjan Stevens premiered his latest creation, the hypnotic Round-Up. Here, Sufjan accompanies his atmospheric score (including limited vocals), which was clearly influenced by the minimalist approach of Steve Reich and the like, with slow motion footage of a rodeo.
• Despite some uneven casting (the usually fabulous Lindsay Duncan) and underpowered performances (Glenn Close, unfortunately), it was still a pleasure to see a deluxe staging of Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance up on the boards of the Great White Way. It’s worth noting that John Lithgow is astonishing in this production as Tobias.
• This past weekend, under the debut baton of Long Yu, the New York Philharmonic played two powerful and iconic pieces: Shostakovich 5 and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. Mr. Yu’s urgent rendition of the Shostakovich, in particular, left an impression. Violin soloist Maxim Vengerov, who apparently hasn’t performed with the NY Philharmonic in a while, was technically proficient yet oddly lacking in passion in the Tchaikovsky piece.
• Down in Washington, DC, I had the opportunity to attend the first post-Ari Roth production at Theater J (the rest of the season remains curated by Roth) – Aaron Posner’s Life Sucks (Or the Present Ridiculous), a fast-and-loose adaptation of Uncle Vanya. Although it’s pretty much a rehash of the techniques he used in Stupid Fucking Bird (guess which Chekhov play this was adapted from?), I had a tremendously fun time at the wonderfully cast and staged Life Sucks. I’ve always thought Ari Roth was an inspired and important artistic director; you’ll be missed.
• The New York City Ballet last week began its winter season at the David H. Koch Theater; looking at the calendar, we have a treasure trove of ballets from the masters to look forward to. I recently caught an eclectic program entitled Hear the Dance: Russia, which features ballets (Martins, Robbins, Balanchine) set to Russian music (Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Glazunov). The commanding Sara Mearns in Balanchine’s Cortege Hongrois was dramatic and choreographic perfection.