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 →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Heiner Goebbels’ EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED AND WOULD HAPPEN philosophically takes on human history on a huge scale

Yesterday evening, for the second night in a row (after having attended Triptych at the Brooklyn Academy of Music), I paid witness to a fascinating, large-scale theatrical fusion. That’s because I attended … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – The New Victory Theater continues to be New York’s premiere performing arts presenter for young audiences

Time and time again, The New Victory Theater on 42ndStreet has proven itself to be New York’s premiere presenter of theater for children and young adults. I applaud the institution’s … 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 →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Renée Fleming and Ben Winshaw are superb in NORMA JEANE BAKER OF TROY, Anne Carson’s genre-straddling concoction

It’s hard to assess a piece like Anne Carson’s Norma Jeane Baker of Troy, which marks the first theatrical run at the 500-seat Griffin Theater at The Shed, the brand new performing arts … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Janáček’s slight DIARY OF ONE WHO DISAPPEARED is given a tastefully vague staging by Ivo van Hove

For just a handful of performances this past week as part of Brooklyn Academy of Music’s winter/spring season, Flemish opera company Muziektheater Transparant’s production of Leoš Janáček’s Diary of One Who Disappeared played the … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – Reassessing Lepage’s RING CYCLE for the Met, roughly at the halfway point

Back in 2010, renowned French Canadian experimental theater director Robert Lepage embarked on staging Richard Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle – one of the towering achievements in Western Art – for the Metropolitan Opera, replacing a … Continue Reading →