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A novel of echoes, reflections (sometimes inverted), and criss-crossing lines, Lance Olsen’s Calendar of Regrets locates nodes of intersection, spotlights the forgotten, and magnifies the unnoticed. Calendar of Regrets by Lance Olsen. Fiction Collective, 456 pages, $22. By Vincent Czyz Lance Olsen’s Calendar of Regrets had me from the opening scene: a vividly imagined and…
Read MoreThe only thing more unforgettable than this sung story of woe was the eloquent singing of Lynn Torgove. Vaughan Williams could have hoped for no better singer or instrumental ensemble. The Cantata Singers. At Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough Street, Boston, MA, January 14. By Susan Miron The history of British classical music is a strange…
Read MoreIt’s very difficult to lure new audiences into the concert hall in most parts of the United States, hard to find useful introductions to pieces of classical music and hard to judge from the reaction of UnderScore concertgoers whether they were pleased with their experience. I applaud the BSO’s initiative. UnderScore Friday. Presented by the…
Read MoreThis musical/dance hybrid portrays Afrobeat originator Fela as a master entertainer and political agitator, an evening of terrific dance numbers nimbly performed and wonderful music played by first-rate musicians that ends on a suitably somber acceptance that with high flying dreams of freedom come bottom line responsibilities. FELA! Book by Jim Lewis and Bill T.…
Read MoreAuthor and Arts Fuse Contributor Helen Epstein explains why she decided to take her 1994 biography Joe Papp: An American Life and convert it into an eBook—given what may be the precarious future for the traditional book, she “wanted to save it for posterity.” By Helen Epstein. AF: Joe Papp died in 1991. Why publish…
Read MoreSince its debut, the play Hysteria has been advertised as “in the comic tradition of Tom Stoppard,” blithely blending fact and fantasy, real life people and fictional characters into frothy fun. Unfortunately, Johnson is no Stoppard. Hysteria or Fragments of an Analysis of an Obsessional Neurosis by Terry Johnson. Directed by Daniel Gidron. Presented by…
Read MoreThe mad rush to digitization brings up another host of new issues. Unlike a printed book, digital media requires a change of technologies—computers, software, imaging—to interpret the information. Will digitization serve the long-term interests of knowledge as well as the media it is replacing? It’s unlikely. By Peter Walsh. When we look back from, say,…
Read MoreThe tragicomic idea is that the existential futility of Franz Kafka’s world reflects life in the theater. The characters gloriously quixotic love for the stage battles against commercial greed, egomania, and psychological mess-ups. The Understudy by Theresa Rebeck. Directed by Larry Coen. Staged by the Lyric Stage Company of Boston at the 140 Clarendon Street…
Read MoreFor classical music connoisseurs, YouTube has morphed into a virtual museum of music, at once an oasis of archival material, rare recordings, and provocative content. Rare recorded materials, some of them dating back to the early 1900s that were once available only in the dusty archives of a research library, are now instantly accessible, often…
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Arts Commentary: With Friends Like These — The New York Times Explains Why Criticism Matters
The important question the NYTBR Editors fail to ask is whether the traditional definition and values of literary criticism will survive in an age of ebooks and iPads. Is there a primal appetite for criticism? (Edith Wharton says there is, and I believe her.) How will the Internet shape our innate desire to compare, judge,…
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