In Ronald Harwood’s 20th-century play about the theater, The Dresser, the title character says of his friend who was in crisis due to depression, “What saved him was an offer of work.” Isn’t that the truth and what we artists all need right now? Well, then, God bless Synetic Theater for offering work to so […]
Review: Synetic’s artists interpret three stories from 14th century plague novel, The Decameron. Day 1
When society seems bound together in a single shared experience, that is often the time when a work of art resurfaces, offering itself up as metaphor and speaking directly to the times. During the last several months of the health pandemic caused by COVID-19, that work is Giovanni Boccaccio’s literary classic, “The Decameron,” a work […]
Francesca Zambello: Thoughts on opera in the time of Covid
On May 13th, Opera America launched its first annual conference online, marking the organization’s Fiftieth Anniversary. Over 1200 people had signed in when I checked the count of attendees, representing fellow artists and organizations the world over. Many, I’m sure, had been feeling scared or depressed, struggling through shutdowns, layoffs, and most especially questions regarding […]
There is good news for audiences watching theatre online. And it’s not just that it’s free.
Strange times have given us just that: time. Specifically, all of us have time inside to experience performances on our home screens. Individual artists and companies are scrambling to material online, leaving audiences to pick through a myriad of choices. Choosing what to see can be both overwhelming and, frankly, often underwhelming. Occasionally, however, hidden […]
From The Women Composers Festival. Timothy Nelson introduces the women and the music that will “surprise, delight, and inspire”
This first weekend in March brings together works from some extraordinary women working in exciting new directions today in the realm of ‘opera and beyond.’ In Series hosts a Women Composers Festival with two full operas and a total of six different programs in a compressed three days. It promises to be a rare glimpse […]
Opera review: Don Giovanni meets the #MeToo movement
It was inevitable. Don Giovanni would have to face the match of his life against the #MeToo movement. The problem is this production, not two years after the resplendent WNO production directed by John Pascoe, not only brought down the man, but the production itself, and all but poor Amadeus Mozart. The stakes were high […]
Opera review: Samson and Delilah. Modern technicals make this rarely seen story “an opera for the senses”
Opening night came on a Sunday afternoon for Samson and Delilah by Camille Saint-Saëns. It’s an opera not seen in Washington for ages, and, headlined by the ravishing J’Nai Bridges, the event was highly anticipated. The production moved like a rolling dreamscape, an opera for the senses – and especially the heart. We hear a […]
Opera review: Beethovan’s Leonore from Opera Lafayette
Opera Lafayette has taken on a prodigiously ambitious task in tackling the “reawakening” of Ludwig van Beethoven’s single operatic masterpiece (Fidelio) by giving us the composer’s earlier and little-known work Leonore (1805) as a modern premiere. Everything about it pointed to a singularly important Washington event at Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater, and serious opera lovers […]
Review: World Stages: Heroine. A disappointing production of a powerful wartime story
I mostly love the works brought to DC by The Kennedy Center’s World Stages. I love the sub-genre of one-person shows. I also take a serious interest and have been involved in working with the area’s community of military veterans. So I was disappointed that Heroine left me cold. Writer Mary Jane Wells had not […]
Review: GALA’s Exquisita Agonía (Exquisite Agony), visually and emotionally stunning
Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Nilo Cruz has come to Washington’s GALA Hispanic Theatre to direct his most recent play, and has unleashed from his prodigiously creative mind something like a master class in imaginative theatricality. Cruz starts his creative process with characters, and Exquisita Agonía (Exquisite Agony) is no exception. It’s as if he’s thrown them […]
Review: World Stages: Huff. A dazzling young performer delivers hard truths
A stranger comes to town. He changes things up. He sheds a light on deep darkness. There are things the people don’t want to see but can’t look away. There is something of the shaman about him. It feels dangerous. Breathe. This is not a synopsis of Huff. This was the experience watching a solo […]
Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns at Arena Stage, a harrowing Afghan drama
Carey Perloff’s opening scene of the staged adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s shattering novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, moves with breathtaking beauty. Two women in one direction and a man in another pull two rug runners slowly passing across the stage in opposite directions; on these rugs are placed their few chief belongings, cultural artifacts recognizably […]
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