Search Results: Helen Epstein
By 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…
Read MoreLike many devotees of Shakespeare & Company, I’ve long been an admirer of Tod Randolph, who over the last thirteen years in the Berkshires has given indelible and exceptionally intelligent performances of such Shakespearean roles as Desdemona and Portia. Miriam Hyman (Donna) and John Douglas Thompson (Dad) in “The Dreamer Examines his Pillow” at Shakespeare…
Read MoreThis is shorter, no-frills Opera as Cinema than the Met HD supplies: without long intermissions, star interviews and audience preludes and postludes from Lincoln Center, it’s almost an hour shorter.
Read MoreTribes makes us privy to the dynamics of a twenty-first-century, secular, Jewish family in a series of fast-paced scenes that leave few holds barred. The parents—middle-class, middle-aged, hyper-verbal intellectuals—are trying to cope with the fact that their three adult children have returned to inhabit the nest. By Helen Epstein. When I first wrote London friends…
Read MoreBy Helen Epstein “Broken Embraces” at Kendall Square and Embassy Cinemas 1: Pedro Almodovar, one of the most interesting directorial sensibilities of our time, whose films probe our infinite varieties of experience in love and work 2: Penelope Cruz, an original who also incarnates the best of the many movie stars — American and European…
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 MoreEvery single player and singer seemed thrilled to be performing this music, absorbed in it, attentive to their masterful conductor and having a good time. It made me think how often that is not the case at symphony concerts. By Helen Epstein There were no star soloists or conductors around on Friday night and since…
Read MoreThe pairing of food for the stomach and food for the soul made me think of the role of culture in extreme situations.
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