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Coming Attractions in Film: March 2011

February 27, 2011
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March is shaping up to be the month for strong, female leads. Hollywood has its eye turned toward the classics, with Jane Eyre, Red Riding Hood, and a modern, stylized take on Alice in Wonderland in Sucker Punch. In addition, Boston hosts several film festivals including Jewishfilm.2011, the Irish Film Festival, and Wild & Scenic…

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Coming Attractions in Theater: March 2011

February 26, 2011
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An exciting month, and that isn’t hyperbole. A couple of North American premieres: a futuristic opera from MIT’s Tod Machover and poet Robert Pinsky and a drama tweaking The New Testament from Howard Brenton. Toss in iconic director Peter Brook staging Beckett, F. Murray Abraham as Shylock, and Car Talk:The Musical and you are talking about taking out the smelling salts

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Music Commentary: What Are the BSO Trustees Thinking?

February 24, 2011
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I’ve been going to BSO Open Rehearsal for some 50 years at Tanglewood and can’t remember ever having as alienating an experience as I and over one thousand other attendees had Wednesday night at Symphony Hall.

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Classical Music Review: Masterworks Chorale Offers a Contemplative Tchaikovsky

February 24, 2011
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The Masterworks Chorale doesn’t get the critical attention or large audiences it rightly deserves. Friday’s concert may not have been as well-attended as it should have been, but those in the audience realized they were having a rare and extraordinary listening experience.

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Theater Review: A Painfully Good “Europeans”

February 24, 2011
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Director Meg Taintor’s fine staging of Howard Barker’s play focuses on the complex script’s affecting personal through line: the growing love between reluctant war hero and disgraced victim, and their struggle to fashion something real amid the growing artificiality around them. The Europeans by Howard Barker. Directed by Meg Taintor. Staged by Whistler in the…

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Classical Music Interview: Cantata Singers’ David Hoose On J. S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor

February 24, 2011
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The venerable Cantata Singers and Ensemble obviously knows how to throw an epic party. The group is limbering up for its 50th anniversary celebration by taking on J. S. Bach’s monumental Mass in B Mass in B Minor, BWV 232.

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Fuse News: March Preview Newsletter, Hot Off the Presses

February 22, 2011
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The March Arts Fuse Preview Newsletter is out, bursting with news of the magazine’s impressive growth, future plans, and, of course, invitations to support (via tax deductible donations) this vital cultural enterprise by becoming a member.

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Book Review: The Préversities of Jacques Prévert — Enthusiastically Translated

February 20, 2011
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Norman Shapiro’s enthusiasm as a translator is felt not only in the versions themselves but also in his introduction and notes. He relishes finding equivalents for Jacques Prévert’s rhyming, which induces him to take some justifiable liberties in regard to the original. The volume is a true labor of love. Préversities: A Jacques Prévert Sampler…

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Theater Review: Notes on Shakespeare as a Bare Bard

February 19, 2011
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Two recent productions of Shakespeare, one a heralded London staging at the Donmar Warehous heading to New York in April, the other an Actors’ Shakespeare Project presentation in Davis Square, provide examples of the strengths and weaknesses of tackling the Bard without frills.

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Classical Music Interview: Franz Liszt’s 200th Birthday Bash

February 17, 2011
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It’s the 200th birthday of Franz Liszt, and there are concerts, conferences, and projects devoted to the pianist/composer going on all over the world this year. Lisztomania at New England Conservatory is one of a number of parties in the Boston area. The Boston Conservatory is also puttin’ on the Liszt. By Bill Marx In…

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