Interludes

THE STATE OF THE ARTS – March 25, 2015

• By drediman
• March 25, 2015
• No Comments

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

• Not Just a Wagnerian Warm-Up. In preparation for next season’s highly anticipated Ring Cycle, the Washington National Opera recently flexed its considerable Wagnerian muscles at the Kennedy Center in the form of Stephen Lawless’s symbol-laden production of The Flying Dutchman. Despite some qualms with the somewhat heavy-handed (if effective) production, it all sounded great, particularly the love triangle at the opera’s center. Bass-baritone Eric Owens sung and acted potently and with deep feeling as the Dutchman, while the roles of Senta and Erik were sung with an elegance not usually associated with Wagner by soprano Christiane Libor and tenor Jay Hunter Morris, respectively. Conductor Phillippe Auguin led a powerful account of Wagner’s early, more conventionally tuneful score.
• Still as Wickedly Alluring. I had reservations about revisiting one of my favorite musicals of 2014, Dave Malloy’s exquisite song cycle Ghost Quartet. My experience last year at the Bushwick Starr was as perfect a theatrical experience that I could ask for; I did not want to tarnish the memory by revisiting the piece. I needn’t have worried. The current transfer (complete with its splendid original cast, including Malloy himself) of this oddly singular little musical to the hip, albeit less intimate, Heath space of the McKittrick Hotel is just as splendid. I encourage you to bask in the show’s mesmerizing purgatorial spell where life, death, time, and space become one.
• A Perfect Way to Usher in Spring. Spring was abound in the New York Philharmonic’s playing this past weekend if not the weather outside. Music director Alan Gilbert helmed an invigorating program that included Salonen’s  shimmering Nix (Salonen, who was in the house, took a bow with the orchestra), Ravel’s Piano Concerto (Inon Barnatan was the crisp, strking soloist), Debussy’s uncharacteristically rowdy ballet score for Diaghilev entitled Jeux, and a fresh-as-springtime reading of Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier Suite.
• Playing It Like It Is. One of the more frustrating but hard-to-shake-off plays to open recently is Melissa James Gibson’s Placebo at Playwrights Horizons. A quartet of excellent actors, led by the reliable Carrie Coon, dug into my head with their clear-eyed yet simultaneously muddy depiction of modern-day anxiety and relationships. The play may not tie a neat bow, but maybe that’s exactly why (I think) I’m taking to it.
• Oh Bridget. The fearless Bridget Everett returned to Joe’s Pub (this time with her long-time back-up band, the Tender Moments) for the first time after her hit show Rock Bottom ran at the same venue this winter. What can I say; seeing her show is one of the things in life that make me feel most alive. I just can’t get enough. Luckily, there’s more than enough of Ms. Everett to go around – I think she’d take this as a compliment.