This Thursday at Cathedral St. John in New York: rare John Adams oratorio
Dec
19
2023
It’s very short notice but those of you in New York may want to amble by for music in a majestic space. The Cathedral of St. John the Divine presents contemporary composer John Adams’ El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered, an American Modern Opera Company production, with libretto by Peter Sellars and concept by AMOC member, Julia ...
Peter Sellars ‘Lagrime di San Pietro’ goes on the road
Mar
23
2018
It’s mournfully sad, very beautiful, music. But, for many, these are sad times. And we all need more beauty. That was my takeaway after a 75-minute submersion of ears and soul in the exquisite rapture of Lagrime di San Pietro (Tears of St. Peter), a stunning swathe of a capella choral music by Orlando di ...
A chat with The Broad Stage’s new director Wiley Hausam
Prominent in the crowded field of Los Angeles performing-arts houses is The Broad Stage, where a lively smorgasbord of arts offerings forged a high-profile presence since its debut — in an enviable Santa Monica location — in 2008. Wiley Hausam, a newcomer to Los Angeles, will soon take up the mantle of artistic and executive ...
Great performances overcome ‘Otello’ racist legacy @ ENO 2
I find Shakepeare’s Othello problematic in the extreme, all the racist references in the text, the historic use of blackface, the desperate fragility of a black man so easily duped by a white conniver, the hysteria around strong and bestial black hands closing around the white neck of the blameless Desdemona, even more so when ...
ENO ‘Cosi’ conjured at Coney Island
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 ...
Cameron Carpenter, accompanying “Caligari,” pulls out stops 1
London’s Southbank Centre dearly loves a party. Give it any excuse and the architecture that some have characterized as brutalist is festooned with banners, murals and all manner of colorful whirligigs, giving this hitherto cultural bunker the air of Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island-on-Thames. The return of the Southbank’s 7,866-pipe Harrison organ after six years of restoration ...
Rokia Traoré brings Malian magic to the Luckman
Though Rokia Traoré began her genre-, culture- and gender-bending incursion into the international music scene in the late 1990s, I didn’t encounter her until Peter Sellars’ 2006 New Crowned Hope Vienna festival, celebrating the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. Reconceiving the composer as a griot traveller between Paris and Mali’s capital of Bamako, Traoré’s glorious ...
Jacaranda’s serious island-hopping season opener
Oct
9
2012
Renowned contemporary American composer Tobias Picker will narrate the West Coast premiere of his “The Encantadas,” a narrative with music inspired by Herman Melville’s novella of the same name, to open Jacaranda’s 2012-13 season. The Oct. 20 concert, dubbed “Different Islands,” will juxtapose Picker’s evocation of the unspoiled Galapagos Islands with Steve Reich’s “City Life,” ...