Category: Music, Dance & Theater

At Paul Recital Hall at Juilliard on Saturday, October 18.

Conrad Tao is fourteen years old—a true prodigy, I suppose, though I hate that word—and I went to his solo recital at Juilliard with a friend from my old college piano studio. Sitting next to her, someone who’s heard me mangle basic Chopin nocturnes and Mozart sonatas, while some kid flew through a few pillars of piano literature was bizarre and kind of funny. Clearly I made the right decision in choosing not to pursue a career as a professional musician.

At New York City Center on Sunday, October 12.

I went to see the San Francisco Ballet because I wanted to diverge from the Balanchine-heavy repertory of the New York City Ballet, but perhaps inevitably, my favorite element of San Francisco’s program was Balanchine’s classic “The Four Temperaments.” What’s more, San Francisco felt somehow softer and less crisp than New York. I enjoyed the program—the dancing was lovely—but I think the New York City Ballet has brainwashed me more than I realized.

The Metropolitan Opera on Friday, October 10.

There’s been a lot of talk about opera companies taking looks as well as vocal abilities into account when making casting decisions. Our collective fixations being what they are, the talk tends to focus on women and their weight, but if we must obsess about the issue, we probably should broaden the conversation. I know I couldn’t help notice that while the female leads in the Met’s Don Giovanni were extraordinary, Don Juan himself was only okay—at least when it came to the arias. He rocked a Harlequin-style mane and torso to convincing effect.

I don’t want to overstate the case. Erwin Schrott was fine, but in comparison to Susan Graham (Donna Elvira) and especially Krassimira Stoyanova (Donna Anna), his projection was inadequate and his musicality lackluster. Nonetheless, he gave an entertaining performance, not just looking the part but acting it quite well. Aside from his hammy closing scene, he was the finest actor on stage by a wide margin, so more than anything else, this Don Giovanni impressed upon me how difficult it is to find an outstanding actor and an outstanding singer together in a single outstanding package.

The Metropolitan Opera on Tuesday, September 23.

From the cheap seats of the family circle, soprano Karita Mattila has the vintage Britney Spears act down cold. Closer in, the effect might not be so convincing (she is in her forties), but at a distance, her fidgety, loose-limbed, not-that-innocent bearing is just about perfect. Mattila’s Salome is both sensual and childish, sophisticated and immature, and it’s not always apparent whether she’s truly conscious of the impact she has on those around her.

Even Mattila’s voice has a youthful (though blessedly un-Britney-like) timbre. She dances over Strauss’s slippery melodies with a light, ringing tone that somehow conveys Salome’s quicksilver moods and perverse desires without sacrificing the beauty of her instrument. Her performance is brilliant: provocative and gorgeous and creepy as hell, which makes it ideally suited for the provocative, gorgeous, creepy-as-hell opera.

Now playing at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway.

I have only vague memories of the film adaptation of A Man for All Seasons, which I saw as a child (my parents have weird ideas about what constitutes a kid-friendly movie), but I remembered enough to know that the play is about the persecution of Thomas More. Being uneasy about both religion and martyrdom, I didn’t expect to relate much when I bought a ticket to this new production, but I figured it would be interesting nonetheless, a curiosity of both the Reformation and the idealistic 1960s.

So I was surprised—quite surprised, actually—when the play did resonate for me. Underneath all the historical trappings, it proved relevant and meaningful. Turns out it’s less about religious principles than about legal principles, and More, far from being off-puttingly eager to make a statement with his own death, is, in fact, a reluctant martyr, trying to find an honorable way out of his predicament right to the end. And with Frank Langella playing More, that end is a memorable one indeed.

The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra on Wednesday, August 20.

Much of Mozart’s music sounds relatively easy, which is why it can be so difficult. Romantic sturm und drang can hide all manner of sins, but unclouded classicism isn’t so forgiving. Without a lot of distracting flash, Mozart’s music must be played impeccably to really sparkle.

Sadly, the festival orchestra was not impeccable Wednesday evening. Maybe it was because the musicians don’t play together regularly, maybe they just had an off night, but the music never crystallized the way it should, and the winds had tuning issues, which made the Serenade for Winds rather unfortunate. Hearing lackluster Mozart at the Mostly Mozart Festival left me a bit dismayed, but the other composers’ works—and the piano soloists—made up for that disappointment.

The New York Philharmonic at Central Park, on Tuesday, July 15.

Lesson learned: When attending a free concert in Central Park, go directly after work to stake out a spot. In the past, I’ve done that as a matter of course, but the concert Tuesday snuck up on me, and I made a quick trip home to grab dinner and a blanket to spread on the ground. By the time I arrived at the park about forty-five minutes before the program began at 8, I could only find room about two-thirds of the way down the Great Lawn.

From there, I could barely hear the orchestra, particularly because at that distance most of my neighbors would best be described as picnickers rather than concert-goers. Not to be a snob, but I don’t understand their thinking. If you just want to eat and drink and talk and enjoy the outdoors, why attend a concert at all? Have a picnic some other night, and leave the concert-going for those of us interested in hearing the music!

The American Ballet Theatre at Lincoln Center on Tuesday, July 8.

Dancers generally don’t show fatigue. No doubt the fact that they’re in peak physical condition has something to do with that, but even so, it just wouldn’t do to have anyone gasping for breath between pirouettes or pausing after a series of leaps to put his head between his legs. So part of what makes the ballet Giselle so much fun is that it makes such a show of exhaustion. Characters literally dance themselves to death—but not before they pant and heave and collapse a few times, almost as if their bodies tire like those of normal human beings—and I have to admit, I kind of love it.

My sicko tendencies aside, however, Giselle is a wonderfully lush, twistedly tragic ballet, a paragon of the romantic tradition. If the score were by Tchaikovsky, it would be perfect. (The music, from a hodgepodge of sources, is fine, but it can’t compare to Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty.)

Now playing at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway.

The centerpiece of August: Osage County is a grandly disastrous family dinner. The matriarch of the Weston family gleefully tears a strip out of everyone in turn, paying particular attention to her three daughters and leaving behind a glut of emotional carnage: reopened wounds, exposed secrets, and shattered psyches. The frequently made comparison to Tennessee Williams’ work isn’t an overstatement. It might be set in Oklahoma rather than the Deep South, but this year’s winner of both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play falls easily into the muggy, tempestuous Southern gothic tradition.

JVC Jazz Festival at Le Poisson Rouge on Friday, June 27.

I don’t know anything about jazz. I mean, I can recite the requisite list of icons—Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and, um, other people who aren’t dead yet—but I’ve never studied jazz or even listened to it much. I feel so out of my element here that I tried to convince myself I needn’t write about this concert at all, but that would go against my personal Code of Blogging (really!), and besides, it was an amazing experience, one that I want to remember, so it would do me good to try to articulate what I got out of it. So here goes: