Taken together, these four pieces showcase a composer whose handling of the orchestra is expert and whose sense of form, in these works at least, feels unerringly right.
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Opera Feature: Should We Be Updating Operas So They Address Present-Day Issues?
Philip Glass’s librettist Arthur Yorinks offers his thoughts on whether and how to update an opera as the Boston Lyric Opera releases its revamped and filmed version of The Fall of the House of Usher.
Film Review: “Breaking Fast”– The Romantic Life, Among Gay Muslims
Films like Breaking Fast introduce audiences to cultures that they may not be familiar with — that they may even be hostile to — but through conflicts and dreams that are universal, that revolve around family, love, and friendship.
Film Review: “The White Tiger” — Class Warfare, Indian Style
This is a wicked and entertaining satire on the dizzying class conflicts roiling Indian society, a neo-Marxist story of masters and servants, money and corruption — a Horatio Alger tale with a devilish twist.
Listening During Covid, Part 4: Fascinating Vocal Adventures from Different Times and Places
I may be in quarantine, but music can transport me back to the Middle Ages, or to the court of Catherine the Great of Russia, or, via Donizetti, to an imagined India.
Film Review: “Azizler” (aka Stuck Apart) — Trapped Again
Azizler is a slow burn; unfortunately, the payoff isn’t worth the wait.
Film Review: “Epicentro” — An Affectionate View of Cuba
Politics is not the filmmaker’s interest in this lovely, affecting documentation of non-bureaucratic, everyday life in Havana.
Theater Review: “The Race” — Business as Unusual
This is a very effective political drama, a relevant warning about what social critic Chris Hedges calls the formation of “corporate totalitarianism.”
Arts Remembrance: Phil Spector
The late Phil Spector once famously referred to his songs as “little symphonies for the kids.”
Book Review: “Freak Out! My Life with the Mothers of Invention” — Intimate Observations
Fans of Frank Zappa who want to know about Frank the man as well as Zappa the musical and political icon would be wise to seek out Freak Out!