Monday, November 30, 2009
Seeing Lang Lang twice this season at Carnegie Hall brought to mind a remarkable clip from his Carnegie appearance back in November 2003 — a piano-erhu duo with his father that has since become an occasional set-piece. For all the childhood-obliterating pressure Lang Guoren put his son through—recounted by the latter, corroborated by the former—their […]
Madame Butterfly in HD [rebroadcast of the live March 7 Met performance] March 17, 2009, Walter Reade Theatre at Lincoln Center Metropolitan Opera Conductor: Patrick Summers Production: Anthony Minghella Cast: Patricia Racette (Cio-Cio San), Marcello Giordani (Pinkerton), Maria Zifchak (Suzuki), Dwayne Croft (Sharpless) The drama was taut, the gorgeousness detailed. The staging: imaginative, often exquisite, […]
Also filed in Asiana, Film, Music, New York, Opera
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Tagged cho-cho san, hd, lincoln center, madame butterly, marcello giordani, minghella, Opera, patricia racette, pinkerton, puccini, puppetry, puppets, reviews, theatre, walter reade
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Thursday, December 18, 2008
Like Last Tango in Paris and Unfaithful, Damage is a film that explores—with punishing severity—the nightmarish consequences of lustful abandon. The acting excels within the category of tense facial tableaux: Jeremy Irons as MP Stephen Fleming, at once wooden and craven, Juliette Binoche’s Anna Barton trancey and transfixing, her gaze by turns pleading and rejecting. […]
Also filed in Film, Politics
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Tagged betrayal, damage, dyad, fatalism, jeremy irons, josephine hart, juliette binoche, louis malle, lust, monogamy
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Fidelio at the Met. Karita Mattila sang Leonore’s role gorgeously, and she was impressively spry as Fidelio, too, scampering around the stage with boyish aplomb, scooting up and down ladders, bearing groceries. Apart from the limpid quartet in the opening act and the arpeggiated vocal mountaineering of the ‘Abscheulicher!’ duet in the final act, it […]
Also filed in Film, Music, Opera, Philosophy
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Tagged alex ross, beethoven, ben heppner, brattle theatre, claire denis, drama, fidelio, florestan, french films, harvard film archive, heldentenors, james levine, karita mattila, leftism, leonore, peter watkins, richard margison, the left, theatre, zizek
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Carmen was the first opera I knew and loved, before its tunes became too familiar and the eager young self dismissed it as unsophisticated. Last night, in the Zeffirelli production first staged at the Met in 1996, I began to rediscover its musical as well as dramatic intelligence. My memory of Don Jose, formed upon […]
Also filed in Film, Labor, Music, New York, Opera
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Tagged bizet, carmen, cigarettes, don jose, french, ildar abdrazakov, independence, irina mishura, Love, metropolitan opera, monogamy
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A few very recent, admissibly notable events: Anna Karenina bolts to No. 1 in bestselling paperback fiction. On her May 27 show, still days before the official announcement, Oprah whispered a few hints to guest Sharon Stone about her next Book Club selection. For any alert lit-critter, Stone’s remarks in response were a dead giveaway: […]
Thursday, January 1, 2004
“Prose should be a long intimacy between strangers with no direct appeal to what both may have known.” — Henry Green, Pack My Bags.