Articles
6207 results
Page 452
"The King's Speech' reconsidered
On bowing and scraping before The King's Speech
The King's Speech, the much acclaimed film about King George VI's struggle to overcome his stutter, rests on a long-discarded literary premise: the notion that kings and queens are interesting and important people. Isn't it time we stopped bowing and scraping before these innocuous parasites?
Articles
3 minute read
How I learned to love Milton Babbitt
Milton Babbitt's ultimate message: Stop trying to hold on
Audiences didn't understand Milton Babbitt's music. For a long time, I didn't, either. But as he would say, who understands particle physics? For that matter, who understands James Joyce?
Articles
4 minute read
Menotti Centenary concert at Curtis
Will the real Menotti please stand up?
The late composer Gian-Carlo Menotti was so prolific, gregarious and commercial that serious music critics often dismissed his work. But the “best of Menotti” excerpts assembled for his Centenary concert sounded better than the original operas. What he needed, apparently, was a good curator.
Articles
4 minute read
Vox Amadeus: all-Vivaldi concert
Hold the entrée, bring on the hors d'oeuvres
The Four Seasons is a nice piece, but I've heard it too often recently. Vivaldi's enormous output includes dozens of entries that are just as inventive and charming.
Articles
3 minute read
Jews and slavery: "The Whipping Man' in New York
When slaves in Egypt owned slaves in Virginia
How could Jews, of all people, have owned slaves in the antebellum South? Matthew Lopez's inspiring new play, The Whipping Man, uses one such family as a parable of faith, family, freedom and the brotherhood of man.
Articles
5 minute read
Pennsylvania Ballet's "Classical Innovations'
A program in search of a point
Two pieces on Pennsylvania Ballet's latest program offered beauty and sensory treats but no particular point. The company would do better to scrap both and stage the third by itself: Twyla Tharp's awe-inspiring In the Upper Room.
Articles
2 minute read
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Concert Operetta's "Remembering Romberg' (2nd review)
Why Sigmund Romberg succeeded (and why he's been forgotten)
Some critics find Sigmund Romberg's exotic operettas schmaltzy and outdated. I disagree, and the recent production of Romberg highlights by the Concert Operetta Theater reinforced my feeling.
Articles
3 minute read
Finn's "A New Brain' at Plays and Players
Near-death experience: the musical
A musical comedy about undergoing brain surgery? Yes, and it works, too.
Articles
2 minute read
David Mamet's "Race' by PTC (3rd review)
David Mamet is angry. Should that concern us?
Where David Mamet's Oleanna provoked anger across gender lines, his Race attempts to evince terror, frustration and guilt along racial divisions. But Race reveals more about Mamet than about his ostensible subject matter.
Articles
4 minute read
Argentina's Tango Fire at the Merriam
Tango's middle-age crisis
Like no other art form I know, the tango shows us who we are. But Tango Fire's brief but intense visit to the Merriam raised an implicit question: Like jazz, where is the tango headed?
Articles
3 minute read