In a world where facts are malleable, the working government gets shut down, good people are without protection of the law, bureaucrats are colluding with the powerful and mad, and officials are left to stir up chaos wherever possible, who better to turn to than Franz Kafka? And who better to deliver theatre that speaks […]
Proving Up, a ghost story opera from Washington National Opera (review)
This weekend a new opera, Proving Up, proved itself indeed – a chamber opera worthy for the 21st century. Born out of a spirit of inquiry, Proving Up is mysterious, mesmerizing, startling in moments, and highly atmospheric. The work is less plot-driven than most traditional opera; it has earmarks rather of an extended tone poem.
Birthing Opera: The Next Generation of Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative
This coming weekend Washington National Opera will showcase its most vital work: insuring the future of the form by developing young creative talent through its American Opera Initiative (AOI), a process that includes getting short operatic gems up on their feet.
Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti (review)
Stillpointe Theatre, a Baltimore-based company known for its sharp takes on the American musical, has just entered the field of opera and became one of the first out of the gate this year to celebrate Bernstein’s hundredth anniversary year with the composer’s Trouble in Tahiti. Seems like the project served as a reunion of some […]
Is WNO’s The Little Prince too sophisticated for children? (review)
The Little Prince returned to earth this past weekend, filling the newly renovated Terrace Theater at the Kennedy Center with a veritable feast of sound and sights. “Amazing!” pronounced Kiko, a first grader from Olney, Md, attending opera for the first time.
Christmas at the Old Bull & Bush, British music hall at MetroStage (review)
Christmas traditions can pull you back into memories of your favorite childhood outings, gooey or punchy. MetroStage has delivered a seasonal British music hall with more punch than goo. Even the lobby has been turned into a kind of olde London pub with appropriate grub and adult beverages. Stoked with “crisps,” and a pint, we […]
Vicuña and The American Epilogue Review: a perfect fit for DC
Jon Robin Baitz fairly sprays the audience with lines that atta-tack-tack like an AK47. You hear the moans of each hit and then explosion after explosion of laughter. In this way, his play Vicuña serves, as many plays have done down throughout history, as a necessary bloodletting from society’s current ills.
WNO’s Alcina casts its spell at The Kennedy Center (review)
Old things may become new. Handel’s opera, Alcina, which premiered in 1735 has done just that – quite magically so. Washington National Opera has dared to take on the classic sorceress for the first time, and it couldn’t have been better timed. “Witchy” and “witchiness” have come back into vogue as women choose to reclaim […]
New opera: Shining Brow, Frank Lloyd Wright in love (review)
One doesn’t go to Urban Arias expecting masterpieces. The whole adventure is about sharing in Founder and Artistic Director Robert Wood’s risk-taking in mounting new or almost new operatic works. The shows selected are always smart and (blessedly) short. The production values are always good, as they are here in Shining Brow. There are high-caliber […]
Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes (review)
Experiencing a Matthew Bourne ballet is like indulging in a whole box of Christmas crackers from Harrods – stuffed with surprises. It also reminds me of reading something by the late writer Vladimir Nabokov – yes, might we say “positively Nabokovian” – dazzling in the layers and turns of the story but always with a […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- …
- 27
- Next Page »