Category: Music, Dance & Theater

The Metropolitan Opera on Tuesday, January 8.

Such a weird opera. That’s inevitable, of course, given how creepy the fairy tale is, what with the aggravated parental abandonment and the grotesque cannibalistic witch, but still, Hansel and Gretel is such a weird opera. Even after the librettist cleaned up the story (the mother shoos her children outside, but she doesn’t actively seek to ditch them in the woods), we’re still left with the narcoleptic-pushing Sandman and the witch force-feeding Hansel before succumbing to a fiery end in the oven, her demise celebrated by a chorus of children who throng to devour her corpse, and all of it set to a Wagner-lite score. Weird.

But not without charm, I guess. Hansel and Gretel’s well-known evening prayer is lovely, and the less-familiar bits share that song’s tuneful appeal and lush harmonies. Composer Engelbert Humperdinck, a protégé of Wagner, uses intricate chromatics without ever becoming harshly dissonant, and if I can’t quite take his work seriously, that’s mainly because I can’t hear his name without thinking of Carol Kane shrieking at Billy Crystal. (The Princess Bride. Different Humperdinck. Not even remotely relevant.)

The New York City Ballet on Wednesday, January 2.

Watching Jewels, George Balanchine’s “first abstract full-evening ballet,” I always felt slightly overwhelmed, like there was too much happening on stage to process it all. Without really thinking about it, I had assumed the lack of narrative would make the ballet less busy, free as it is from the distractions of plot and character, but actually the opposite is true. A story organizes the action: you know who is important, where they’re going, and what the dance “means.” An abstract ballet strips that framework away, forcing you to make sense of everything on your own.

Thus deprived of my crutch, I enjoyed Jewels but felt a bit daunted by it. Of course I’ve seen abstract work before, but the sheer magnitude of this “full-evening” ballet made it feel different. But I had the music, beautiful and familiar, to lean on, and I had the company’s obvious familiarity with the work to lead me, and in the end, no degree of intimidation could dull the sparkle of Jewels.

Chanticleer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Wednesday, December 5.

I like evergreens and Tiny Tim and jolly, red-suited men as much as the next person, but nothing puts me in the joy-to-the-world, God-bless-us-every-one spirit like Christmas music—not the junky Santa Claus stuff but the real carols, simple and candid and tender. That’s why I didn’t mind that the tickets to Chanticleer’s Christmas program were something of a splurge. I love the choir, of course, but I was also excited about the chance to feel Christmassy, for lack of a better word.

The New York Philharmonic on Saturday, December 1.

Gustavo Dudamel is younger than me. I couldn’t help but think that as I watched the twenty-six-year-old Venezuelan wunderkind lead the New York Philharmonic as guest conductor. I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that I’m not particularly ambitious, however much I might think I ought to be, so people like Dudamel fascinate me.

To succeed so spectacularly at such a young age, surely you must have always known what you wanted to do with your life and pursued it single-mindedly, never slowing, never veering off course, never even questioning your direction. Such a course seems terrifying to me, but if that is indeed how Dudamel has led his life, it obviously has worked for him. The skill, self-assurance, artistry, and joy with which he conducted the Philharmonic musicians, some of whom have been members of the orchestra for longer than he has been alive, were nothing short of dazzling. Expectations for the concert were astronomical (the media breathlessly reported that Dudamel had been lent one of the legendary Leonard Bernstein’s batons for the occasion), and he didn’t disappoint. Led by Dudamel, the Philharmonic delivered one of the best performances I’ve ever heard from that orchestra.

The Metropolitan Opera on Monday, November 5.

At the performance of Aida I attended, a set change drew an enthusiastic round of applause. That cracked me up (a set change?—really?!), but to be fair, the spectacle of Aida is half the fun, and this particular production, by Sonja Frisell, features gorgeous sets that manage to be dramatic without stumbling into kitsch—quite an achievement considering how strongly Egyptian iconography is associated with the Bangles and Steve Martin in American pop culture.

Similarly, the bare plot of Aida—a tragic love triangle between a soldier, a princess, and her slave (secretly a princess herself)—would suggest silly melodrama, like the ballet La Bayadère, but for the most part, the opera avoids that. The three main characters each struggle to reconcile duty to one’s people and duty to oneself, and that theme elevates the lurid romance. Aida’s aria “O patria mia,” for example, is genuinely affecting, a beautifully pained elegy for a lost homeland.

Which leads me to the music. Verdi took the libretto’s Egyptian setting as license to dabble in eerie modal melodies and striking orchestration, and the result is a thoroughly Romantic opera that doesn’t sound quite like any other Romantic opera. Authentically Egyptian it’s not (though of course, we have very little idea what music of the pharaonic period would have sounded like anyway), but it does create a luminous, mystical aura. The achingly beautiful melodies—hinting at far-flung locales—make the star-crossed love story seem exotic instead of familiar.

At New York City Center on Wednesday, October 17.

Mild disappointment is so disheartening. You don’t get to be angry or disgusted, no ranting, no nasty barbs, just the sheepish regret of having set expectations too high. I had been so excited about choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s new company. His work is nearly always among my favorites on the New York City Ballet’s programs, and even when I’m not sure I like a piece, it fascinates me and lingers in my memory.

So the premiere of Morphoses was a letdown. There were lovely, charming moments, of course—Wheeldon’s pas de deux are intricately entwined, and he creates beautifully striking tableaus with his ensembles—but nothing on the program seized me. Nothing left me breathless. Nothing (ahem) made me eager to write.

The Metropolitan Opera on Friday, October 5.

Usually I’m not particularly moved, one way or the other, by acting in opera. In good operas, the music provides all the “acting” necessary, and everything extraneous to that is mere filigree on an already impressive monument. But Natalie Dessay made me lose my indifference. Starring in the Met’s new production of Lucia di Lammermoor (a very good opera), she delivers not only a dazzling vocal performance but also a dramatic performance to match.

Royal Shakespeare Company at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Wednesday, September 26.

I need to study King Lear because whenever I see it, I always wonder whether I’m supposed to despise Lear. Is that just a modern or youthful interpretation, to see the play as a warning not to ungrateful children but ungrateful parents? Goneril and (especially) Regan’s treatment of Gloucester is appalling, but their treatment of their father, at least initially, seems reasonable. They’re perfectly within their rights stripping him of his slovenly, rowdy, expensive attendants, and if they do so with unseemly relish, well, given the disrespect with which he’s treated them, I’m not sure I blame them. As unforgiving and vicious as Goneril and Regan can be, that very hard-heartedness marks them as Lear’s true daughters, at least as I usually read the play.

So I’m grateful that Trevor Nunn’s production and Ian McKellen’s masterful performance in the title role managed to complicate and maybe even soften my feelings toward Lear because that makes the play more interesting. Lear becomes more sympathetic if you can see his bullheadness and inability to empathize as—to some extent—symptoms of creeping dementia. Not that Lear was ever a good father to Goneril and Regan or that his treatment of Cordelia was appropriate, but he might have been able to learn and repent—like Gloucester, the other rotten father—if he hadn’t been losing his grip on his sanity.

Shakespeare in the Park, presented by the Public Theater, on Saturday, August 25.

Like everyone who has studied Shakespeare and who loves his work, I have strong feelings about how his plays should be interpreted. If, for example, a production diverges sharply from my vision of Othello (deeply internalized self-loathing rotting behind a facade of strength), I’m skeptical about its quality from the outset. My opinions about A Midsummer Night’s Dream are no less passionate (though perhaps less vehement), so I was slightly disappointed when I learned that the Public Theater’s new production wasn’t using the same actors for Athenian and fairy royalty, often key in the sort of Freudian, forest-as-the-unconscious interpretation I favor.

But Midsummer has so many elements—the lovers, the mechanicals, the fairies, the city, the woods—that even if one element isn’t to your taste, another surely will be. And the Public Theater production won me over. Funny but not frothy, sometimes creepy but never cruel, it was too charming and sweet not to enjoy.

The Mark Morris Dance Group at the Mostly Mozart Festival on Wednesday, August 15.

I’ve never gotten used to the practice at dance recitals of applauding in the middle of a work—to acknowledge a string of pirouettes, for example, or a soloist’s exit from the stage. As a classically trained musician (I know it’s an insufferable phrase, but it’s applicable here), I was taught never to applaud until the very end of the piece and, even then, preferably not until the conductor has dropped his hands or the soloist released her instrument. In the music world, clapping between movements of a work is pitiably ignorant at best, and clapping mid-movement is unheard of.

Dance etiquette is different—I understand that—so I do my best to tolerate the outbursts of applause over the music of Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev and Stravinsky, however much they make me wince. I nearly cracked at Mozart Dances, though. I wanted to scream: I don’t care that you enjoyed that particular solo sequence, people. Emanuel Ax is playing a piano concerto! Shut the hell up!

Perhaps that seems extreme, but in some ways the clash of etiquette reflects Mark Morris’ charming but sometimes problematic union of movement and Mozart. Maybe Mozart just doesn’t truly lend himself to dance.