Culture Vulture
The possibilities of the internet as well as the MET in HD pull Wagner’s dream of a total work of art into the context of 21st-century technology and culture, making possible new cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary references as never before. I think he would have loved it. By Helen Epstein. When I was a musicology student…
Read MoreEver since the Guggenheim got its face-lift a couple of years ago at age 50, Frank Lloyd Wright’s once-controversial museum has become one of my favorite visual arts venues in the city. I like strolling up the spiraling ramp, looking at one picture after another placed in the order that the curator thought the exhibition…
Read MoreI’ve been ruined by the Met at the Mall. Despite the worn-out, industrial carpeting and the popcorn and the lack of glamor, there are great advantages in seeing opera at the movies these days with state-of-the-art technology, especially the sound. By Helen Epstein. After spending most of the last opera season at the Burlington Mall…
Read MoreThe bottom line is that Opera in HD is a huge hit all over the United States and is transforming the art form as it succeeds. Via The Met: Live in HD, New Englanders can experience parts of Wagner’s Ring Cycle without going to New York beginning on October 9 at 1 p.m. with the…
Read MoreThe Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard. Directed by Jonathan Croy. Presented by Shakespeare & Company at the Bernstein Theatre, Lenox, MA, through November 7. Reviewed by Helen Epstein. If you are looking for a light, literate, zany evening of entertainment, you can do no better than Shakespeare & Company’s current production of Tom Stoppard’s…
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 MoreBy Helen Epstein After some peculiar programming last week, Tanglewood’s current weekend got off to a rousing start on Thursday night as Garrick Ohlsson gave a haunting, introspective, and idiosyncratic performance of Chopin. The program, emotion-packed and filled with delicacies as though the pianist could not bear to leave anything out, included nocturnes and mazurkas,…
Read MoreReviewed by Helen Epstein I saw Shakespeare & Company‘s excellent production of Richard III in Lenox, MA last weekend (through September 5 at Founders’ Theatre), with an exceptionally strong ensemble that was kicked into high gear by a high-energy performance from John Douglas Thompson in the title role.
Read MoreBy Helen Epstein This Tanglewood season, overshadowed by the absence of ailing maestros James Levine, Seiji Ozawa, and others who have canceled their appearances, has got me thinking about age and illness. There have been some compelling concerts these past two months, including Michael Tilson Thomas’s riveting Mahler renditions, but the absence of a strong…
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