Helen Epstein
By Helen Epstein After some peculiar programming last week, Tanglewood’s current weekend got off to a rousing start on Thursday night as Garrick Ohlsson gave a haunting, introspective, and idiosyncratic performance of Chopin. The program, emotion-packed and filled with delicacies as though the pianist could not bear to leave anything out, included nocturnes and mazurkas,…
Read MoreReviewed by Helen Epstein I saw Shakespeare & Company‘s excellent production of Richard III in Lenox, MA last weekend (through September 5 at Founders’ Theatre), with an exceptionally strong ensemble that was kicked into high gear by a high-energy performance from John Douglas Thompson in the title role.
Read MoreBy Helen Epstein This Tanglewood season, overshadowed by the absence of ailing maestros James Levine, Seiji Ozawa, and others who have canceled their appearances, has got me thinking about age and illness. There have been some compelling concerts these past two months, including Michael Tilson Thomas’s riveting Mahler renditions, but the absence of a strong…
Read MoreThe most satisfying theatrical experience of my Berkshire summer has been the Chester Theatre Company’s production of Arlene Hutton’s three-part Nibroc Trilogy in Chester, Massachusetts. Gulf View Drive by Arlene Hutton. The third play in the Nibroc Trilogy. Directed by Daniel Elihu Kramer. Staged by the Chester Theater Company, Chester, MA, through August 22. Reviewed…
Read MoreBy Helen Epstein After the Revolution by Amy Herzog. Directed by Carolyn Cantor. Staged by the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Williamstown, MA, July 21 through August 1 (closed). Long before the invention of psychotherapy, long before writer William Faulkner wrote “The past is never dead. It is not even past,” the Greeks mined family history for…
Read MoreBy Helen Epstein July 30 featured a Russian warhorse program at Tanglewood: Glinka’s “Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila”; Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, and Prokofiev’s Music from the ballet Romeo and Juliet. These are familiar (some might say over-familiar) works for orchestra, but, of course, there’s a reason they’re still being programmed.…
Read MoreSee Rock City by Arlene Hutton. The second play in the Nibroc Trilogy. Directed by Jay Stratton. Staged by the Chester Theater Company, Chester, MA, through August 8. Reviewed By Helen Epstein Arlene Hutton’s absorbing Nibroc Trilogy, produced by the Chester Theater Company (CTC), is now in its second phase with See Rock City. Although…
Read MoreBy Helen Epstein If you want a country theater experience, complete with magical valley and stream and a freight train in the distance, go to Chester, MA this month. Chester Theater Company‘s The Nibroc Trilogy is a winner and will culminate on the final two Saturdays of the season (August 14 and 21) with the…
Read MoreBy Helen Epstein The Tanglewood Music Center (TMC) is an incubator for many of the musicians we’ll be hearing in the future, and its conducting seminar is one of the most visible and prestigious in the world. Conducting fellows lead concerts in Ozawa Hall that are a showcase not only for their contemporaries but for…
Read MoreBy Helen Epstein It isn’t often that you get to hear the same conductor, same composer, and two different orchestras but that unusual experience was offered at Tanglewood as Michael Tilson Thomas (filling in for James Levine) conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in Mahler’s Second Symphony last week and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra…
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