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The Turn of the Screw
The aesthetics of the ghost story and of horror in general are essentially those of the Symbolist movement that spanned the 19th and the 20th centuries. Phenomena that are perceived by the senses, say the sight of a ghost or the sound of a raven tapping on the chamber door, intimate the existence of a…
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Elsewhere
My first foray at BAM’s new Fishman Space was ELSEWHERE. Described as an opera for cello, it was the sort of living artwork that washes over you, its individual elements inseparable from general sensation, even with one of them, the cello, plainly at the core. The cellist Maya Beiser cut an imposing figure vocally and…
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Magnus Eroticus
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Einstein on the Beach
Seeing EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH at BAM put me in mind of the designer Edward Gordon Craig, who just over a century ago publicly desired the transformation of actors into übermarionettes, by which means he would have wrestled the idiosyncratic presence of human beings on stage into the service of an overarching artistic vision. The…
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Émilie
Soprano Elizabeth Futral gave conductor John Kennedy a heartfelt embrace at the curtain call for her solo performance in the Lincoln Center Festival premiere run of ÉMILIE, an opera by composer Kaija Saariaho and librettist Amin Maalouf. With a text culled from letters, notes and other documents, Futral sings the part of Émilie du Châtelet,…
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Orpheus
The New York City Opera has been on an Odyssean voyage since setting sail from the financially burdensome port of Lincoln Center, with “its return to its birthplace, New York City Center” set for next April, according to the teller of tales that is next season’s brochure. The journey has been a chance for artists…
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La Traviata
Of all the performing arts, is any more obviously equipped to assert the largeness of human emotions in the face of eternity and infinite space than opera? The isolated instance of joy or pain breaks the confines of the human frame and demands the attention of the cosmos, or at least of anyone within hearing…
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Il sogno di Scipione
This was the inaugural production of the Gotham Chamber Opera, which they have revived in celebration of their 10th season. A creation of the 16-year-old Mozart and the librettist Pietro Metastasio, IL SOGNO DI SCIPIONE is an allegorical dream play in which the Roman general of the title must choose between the affections of Fortune…
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Prima Donna
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A Magic Flute
Of the historically significant theatrical productions that I wish somehow to have been in a position to see, Peter Brook’s pared-to-its-essence Carmen is near the top of the list. So I approached the same director’s hyper-condensed, multi-lingual A MAGIC FLUTE, presented by the Lincoln Center Festival, with a certain eagerness. The result is basically a…