Flirting with Fascism, Sinatra: ENO’s Rodelinda
I’d been away from London, in New York, for Rodelinda’s Coliseum premiere but heard such good things about it that I arranged for one of its last performances and am so glad I did. Beyond the grace of Handel’s music conducted by baroque specialist Christopher Curnyn and played with usual panache by a reduced English ...
Review: Danielle Agami’s “EXHIBITa” @ Celebrate Dance 2
Think of a Robert Crumb cartoon strip — in all its gnarly, grotesque glory. That roughly equates to watching the weird and wonderful foot-parade choreographer Danielle Agami sent across the Alex Theatre stage last night at the ninth annual “Celebrate Dance.” Agami’s “EXHIBITa,” chock-filled with witty movement invention in its Los Angeles premiere, offered the ...
Guilty pleasure? No, guitar pleasure from masters Gismonti, Towner
I was needing to hear some music but the last days before trans-Atlantic travel were beyond hectic. Nothing was fitting. Couldn’t get over to the Coliseum for an opera opening; despite all desire couldn’t fit in that last Vengerov, but the soul was saying “You gots to do something..” Egberto Gismonti at the Barbican. How ...
Getting back to Ballet Black
Now in its 13th shoestring-budgeted season Ballet Black’s chamber ballet company of eight has a reputation of performing far beyond its weight class. Its current mixed program, performed at Linbury Studio Theatre of the Royal Opera House, continues in kind. The creation of young Trinidadian-British Cassa Pancho to provide role models to aspiring young dancers ...
L.A. Dance Project reinvigorates United Artists movie palace 2
Just “yes” to Benjamin Millepied‘s wonderful, calm and engaging “Reflections,” the opening work of L.A. Dance Project‘s “3 Exceptional Performances” program on view in downtown Los Angeles throughout the weekend. More a linked chain of body-conversations than a highly kinetic dance work, “Reflections” (more unmemorable dance-titling from Millepied, the prior, “Moving Parts”), with its strong ...
Review: The Hamburg Ballet in “Liliom” at Segerstrom Hall
All elements converged for John Neumeier’s “Liliom,” a two-act narrative ballet presented Saturday night by the choreographer’s stellar company of 38 years, The Hamburg Ballet. The revisiting of Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnar’s play, adopted by Rodgers & Hammerstein as “Carousel” in 1945, packed much visceral pleasure and emotional punch into one evening at Segerstrom Hall. ...
Shechter, Cherkaoui @ Sadler’s Wells
The big kahuna of London dance, the temple, is Islington’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre. A place of entertainment for 300 years, dance became Sadler’s priority in 1928 when Old Vic manager Lilian Bayliss convinced Ninette de Valois to present the performances of what would eventually become the Royal Ballet (the English National and Birmingham Ballets started ...
‘The Magic Flute’ at English National Opera
Opera lovers in London have any numbers of possibilities. We can go mammoth: Aida in the Royal Albert Hall for an audience of 3500 with singers and orchestra miked to the max; or miniscule: the prizing-winning Opera Up Close at the Kings Head Theatre Pub in Islington for 110, its Prohibition-set Traviata currently running until ...
Opera occupies Union Station 1
The overture ended, a set of heavy double doors opened, and into Union Station spilled the opera audience. As the group dispersed, some displayed trepidation in their quest for the singers heard in their headsets. Others eschewed the life-sized version of Where’s Waldo: One couple made a beeline for the bar; ordering a bottle of ...
The perils of Pauline Schindler 1
In an early letter, Pauline Schindler wrote, “One of my dreams, Mother, is to have, someday, a little joy of a bungalow, on the edge of the woods and mountains near a crowded city, which shall be open just as some people’s hearts are open, to friends of all classes and types… Surely the mother ...