Commentary

Book Commentary: Dreiser’s “The Titan” Turns 100 — America’s “Downton Abbey”

December 31, 2014
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Theodore Dreiser’s The Titan is not the greatest novel about American business, but it is still among the best, an honorable runner-up that turned 100 this year.

Music Commentary: Notable Classical Performances of 2014

December 24, 2014
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It’s fun to recall what’s been played locally since January and be reminded just how rich the greater Boston area’s classical music scene really is.

Theater Commentary: Is a Five-Year-Old Tony Kushner Play Too Challenging For Boston?

December 20, 2014
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The only Boston-based companies that have the means to stage an epic on this scale will shy away from the content while those adventurous enough to handle its iconoclasm lack the means.

Jazz Remembrance: You Don’t Know Jack—From Glasgow to New York

November 2, 2014
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“With Cream I and Ginger could play free jazz as a rhythm section, while Eric played the Ornette Coleman role. However, we didn’t tell Eric that!”

Music Commentary: “I’ve neither seen nor heard it, but I don’t like it. (And neither should you.)”: “The Death of Klinghoffer” Meets the Know-Nothing Protest

October 23, 2014
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What we seem to have here is one of the glories of our democracy in action: the blind leading the oblivious; aping distortions and downright falsehoods about the opera.

Book Commentary: Patrick Modiano — An Oddly Elliptical Choice for the Nobel Prize for Literature

October 23, 2014
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Patrick Modiano’s simple sentences pull one in; the nostalgia of loss and pain of youth and the hunt for a vague, romantic Other are easy to relate to.

Fuse Commentary: A Tasting Menu for Boston Arts — An Idea Whose Time Has Come

October 18, 2014
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Here’s a modest proposal. Let’s invent a Boston arts tasting menu.

Arts Commentary — Big Money for Artist Activists From the Robert Rauschenberg Estate

September 8, 2014
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It’s important for there to be funds, curators, institutions, and audiences for art that can speak truth to power in unconstrained ways.

Visual Arts Commentary: The Lawn on D — A New Park Paradigm in South Boston

August 29, 2014
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The Lawn on D is a breath of fresh cultural air in Boston.

Opera Commentary: The Mess at the Met — … curtain!

August 22, 2014
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On the surface, this is a deal that lets both sides go forward having saved face, though a closer look at things suggests that the musicians came out ahead.

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