Timothy Nelson has ended his first season as Artistic Director of In Series with a stunning and musically gorgeous production of The Tale of Serse. Like George Frideric Handel, the composer of the opera, Nelson is a synthetic artist who likes to tweak and merge disparate material to create radical new experiences for the operatic […]
Spoleto Festival USA 2019: Path of Miracles by The Westminster Choir
There are rare but important artistic experiences that serve as spiritual pilgrimages. This year, in a kind of riches of Grace, we have shared in two at Spoleto Festival. Compagnie Hervé Koubi crafted a work that used in part the language of street dance to carry us on a journey of healing. Joe Miller and […]
Spoleto Festival 2019: Globe Theatre’s Comedy of Errors and Pericles
While Spoleto Festival is perhaps best known for its cutting-edge premieres of opera, dance, and theater, it grants special dispensation periodically to productions by English language’s favorite bard, William Shakespeare. In 2013, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, produced by Bristol Old Vic with South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company, became a festival hit and remains indelibly etched […]
Spoleto Festival 2019: Chamber Music and Compagnie Hervé Koubi, dance
How often we, in our silos, get stuck in our own work and schedules. Even more, artists miss opportunities to be fed and inspired by the interplay of other arts forms. If released, dancers see dance, musicians attend concerts, painters prowl galleries, and theater-makers (if they clamber out of their mole-holes of rehearsal halls) scurry […]
Spoleto Festival 2019: Inspiring opening ceremony followed by a shocking Salomé
A sun-drenched morning greeted townsfolk and cultural tourists alike for the 43rd no-weather-spoiler day at this year’s Spoleto Festival Opening. People gathered in the street outside City Hall. Many of the wise women of this fair city sported wide-brimmed hats and beat fans against the heat; seersucker suits and straw hats remained the dress code […]
Washington National Opera’s glittery Gala 2019. Opera stars share stage with WNO patron John Pohanka
What makes someone a devoted opera fan? Is it the “gilterati?” If so, there was much in abundance Saturday night when the Washington National Opera hosted its Gala in the Opera House. From the fashion statements to the Austrian crystal chandeliers that dominate the auditorium’s iconic look, and from which a few “spares” were made […]
The Gathering: Reflections on the disruptive and profoundly moving CrossCurrents experience
There’s exceptional and important theater in Washington that too often gets overlooked. It doesn’t come nicely packaged in season subscriptions or heralding stars from that other theater town, New York. For those of us who experience such pieces of theater, though rare, they can nonetheless feel like bombs dropped in our midst: disruptive, chaotic, and […]
Review: Spunk, Zora Neale Hurston’s stories at Signature Theatre
There’s something wonderful when two paintings by different creators “hang” side by side and seemingly begin a conversation. It feels that something rich and more than serendipity has taken place recently in DC with three shows produced by different companies that truly “speak” to each other’s themes, especially in their amplifying of the rich musical […]
Review: Tosca. Washington National Opera’s rallying cry “In love or war, what do you stand for?”
Never doubt the sheer power or the relevancy of a great work of opera. All you need for the first are extraordinary musicianship by a conductor, superb singers, and a stage director who can pull out performances of compelling dramatic truth. As for relevancy, the tag on the show’s poster read, “In love or war, […]
The Washington area opera scene, our 2019-2020 season guide
Brush up – your opera. There will be no better time to turn off, dial down, and otherwise forego small devices and experience the “think big” of live opera than in the 2019-2020 opera season ahead. Feed you head – and your soul! Wolf Trap Get a jumpstart this summer by attending opera, some al […]
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