Gilliam’s brilliant, bonkers Berlioz @ ENO

Music · Reviews
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Bombastic imaginations, bonkers juxtapositions, no attention to rules of deportment, and energy without limit.  It would seem that Hector Berlioz and Terry Gilliam are a match made.. well, somewhere .. but certainly for each other.  Following the wild and wooly success of his Damnation of Faust in 2011, Gilliam has trained his most particular talents ...

ENO ‘Cosi’ conjured at Coney Island

Music
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How do you solve a problem like Cosi — Mozart’s Job-like musical glory of messing with the minds of two women on a bet, just to prove that they’re “like that”? In the words of Peter Sellars, prior to his revisionist diner production more than twenty years ago: “Is this the most offensive anti-feminist opera ...

Tracey Davis lovingly honors father, Sammy Davis Jr.

Dance · Music
“It’s been a rough day … a little up and down,” admitted Tracey Davis, her eyes welling slightly with tears as she spoke to a gathered group last night at Larry Edmunds Bookshop about her new book “Sammy Davis, Jr.: A Personal Journey With My Father.” Her high emotion was somewhat atypical for an author ...

REVIEW: Maurice Hines tappin’ to mother’s heartbeat @ The Wallis 1

Dance · Music · Reviews · Theater
The act was called Hines, Hines & Dad. But song-and-dance man Maurice Hines, 70, rectified any oversight of his mom, Friday night, as he opened his one-man show powered by personal history, “Maurice Hines is Tappin’ Thru Life,” at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. The touching, classy, and beautifully staged cabaret program, ...

Oh yeah, Sammy!

Dance · Music
The great dancer Sammy Davis Jr. … and oh yes, also the superb singer, actor and consummate cool guy … had a daughter! That lucky lady, Tracey Davis, has written a book, “Sammy Davis Jr.– A Personal Journey with My Father.” Swing on by (‘cuz everything about SD, Jr. is swingin’) Larry Edmund’s Bookshop on Hollywood ...

Debonair song-and-dance man Maurice Hines tappin’ @ the Wallis

Dance · Music
Marvel of marvels, a beautiful event coming your way, in the still-new and pretty gorgeous Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Broadway legend Maurice Hines teams up with the Manzari Brothers and 11-year old tapping phenomenom Luke Spring, to tap through 40 years in show business. In “Maurice Hines is Tappin’ Through Life,” Hines, ...

Philip Glass on Cocteau’s “La Belle et La Bete”

Film · Music
Our friends at the Center for the Art of Performance (CAP-UCLA) have shared with us an essay by Philip Glass concerning his musical reconfiguring of Jean Cocteau’s “La Belle et La Bete” (“Beauty and the Beast”) to be screened this Friday night, May 2, one night only, at Royce Hall. The film will have live ...

Weaving magic to the Bard: The Royal Ballet in “The Winter’s Tale”

Dance · Music · Reviews · Theater · Visual arts
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I don’t get to Covent Garden all that often lately. Downstairs to the Linbury Studio experiments, yes, but upstairs? Elegant always, but stately for my current tastes — my dance fix is generally fed by Sadlers Wells these days. Last season’s Royal Ballet encounter with Mayerling — my favorite narrative by far — had been ...

Hallyday, in Hollywood not on holiday but at COL·COA

Film · Music
French rock star Johnny Hallyday, who resides in Los Angeles, manly, subtle and sensitive in director Claude LeLouch‘s latest, “Salaud, On t’Aime” (“We Love You, You Bastard” its less charming English title) seen last night, with Lelouch and Hallyday in the house, at opening night of the 18th annual COL*COA, French film festival. In the ...

A keeper: Quincy Jones photo-portrait for TCM Fest

Film · Music · Visual arts
At arts·meme, we like it when art begets art. That’s why we respond so positively to photographer Stefanie Keenan’s outstanding photo-portrait of an artist — Quincy Jones — that came across the transom from Turner Classic Movies this morning. The prodigious Jones gave a fascinating, free-wheeling interview to movie (and jazz) maven Leonard Maltin at ...