Sharpenicity

Les Misérables   Les Misérables — despite its title which means  “the wretched” —  is wondrous!  This new production of the phenomenon known as Les Miz brings a much needed spark of hope of the possibilities of love to hearts that have been broken or whose hopes have been dashed by the exigencies of life.    Les Miz ’s music is haunting as befits the life journey of selfless sacrifice leading to salvation for one man and the tragic ending of the obsession of another.   It calls for a complex web of characters employing wide   vocal choices   to follow the stories of these two men who are engaged in a life long bitter tug of war.   The dramatic tenor role of Jean Valjean is most poignantly sung by Nick Cartell.   Valjean has suffered a great injustice in   being imprisoned for   19 years for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread.   He escapes for a   life of hiding from his relentless pursuer, the c...

HANSEL AND GRETEL—THE OPERA Hansel and Gretel is so many things.   A folk tale adapted by the Grimm brothers,  Englebert Humperdinck’s beloved opera, and even a 20th century novel of  the nightmare of the Nazi era.    The Met Live In HD rebroadcast of its 2008 production puts this tale of these two hungry kids with sweet tooths lost in the dark woods into a different light.  Food is the theme for the three scenes set in three different kitchens. The opener is the home of Hansel and Gretel, (Alice Coote and Christine Schäfer) and most appropriates for  the folksy qualities of poor family (the father is a seller of brooms and brushes not a woodcutter).   The “real” kitchen  has been compared to the kitchen in the The Honeymooners , with the father Peter (Alan Held) most resembling  a somewhat drunken Jackie Gleason, and the mother Gertrude (Rosalind Plowrights) like his  bewildered wife Alice? The dream in the f...

Curve of Departure  —Studio Theater In Studio Theatre’s brilliant offering of the season— Curve of Departure —Rachel Bonds  has like a clever spider weaving a perfect web created a play that is complex, fragile and beautiful for its finely threaded connections of human emotions. There are five characters. The one character that the play revolves about is never seen.  Cyrus.  He is the one for whom there is this family gathering for his funeral, in a motel in   Sante Fe, New Mexico (some know it as “The Land of Enchantment”).   His father Rudy (Peter Van Wagner) is now in and out of dementia, and on the constant verge of attacks of incontinence.  This grand patriarch wanders between confusion and distraction, bitterness and wisdom.  He  enjoys the silly in life like soap operas while focusing on his end of life decision.    Linda (Ora Jones) is the ex-wife. The good woman—she cares for her ex-father-in-law eno...

THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL MET LIVE IN HD  People often are surprised that the operas that they love the best— those that have survived several centuries on stage—had the most negative critical reviews  of their first performances.  So what are we to make of the reviews of a modern opera  that has received a continuum of comments   —- from “must see”  (NYTimes) to “felt like I was being locked in the opera house to stay” (comment). There is no quick test to know if this is a great gift to the future generations but for the here and now, Thomas   Adès' The Exterminating Angel , is something to experience.   No one disagrees over the facts:  It is surreal, complex, and stresses the highest range possible coming from a human voice.   High emotional moments were matched with higher vocal ranges as delivered by Audrey Luna, in the role of  Leticia (an opera diva in the opera), who reaches up to an A above high C. No one give...

Alcina    Washington National Opera Alcina is a sorceress living on fantasy island who turns her lovers into stones or other objects when she is through with them. There is a long backstory before the complex history of all the characters surrounding her in  Handel’s opera Alcina  even starts to unfold.  In short by the end,  Alcina gets what she deserves.   Handel’s opera Alcina also got what it deserves—  Washington National Opera’s   assembly of a cast of grand singers, set on a glorious stage with lighting to evoke their emotional states along with graceful dancers flowing throughout.   It leaves no surprise that Angela Meade would take ownership of this role of Alcina, adding sorceress to her impressive resume of fantasy characters like the Druid high priestess Norma and the Babylonian queen Semiramide.  Her singing is the stuff that legends are made of, her power in unleashing the hidden glories in Handel’s score....

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA     AT THE FOLGER THEATRE Antony and Cleopatra is a study in contrasts. It will go from this—  To this.... in two hours in front of our eyes. For starters, their relationship has been explored and e xploited in every form.   As one of Cleopatra’s modern biographers,   Stacy Schiff has observed —she has had the busiest of afterlives with incarnations as “an asteroid, a video game, a cliché, a cigarette, a slot machine, a strip club, a synonym for Elizabeth Taylor.”   Antony on the other has been documented in detail in Roman history.   Together the two some have been featured in   plays and movies (including one horror film) and opera.   The   Folger   production uses for the   stage   a triangular platform in the center of the theater, very simple but  an  effective way to remove all distraction from the core of the story and bring the audience into the circl...

Die Zauberflöte The Met: Live in HD While the flute is probably the oldest of musical instruments (at least according to archeological finds that places at 40-60,000 years ago),  on  the top ten most popular operas performed today (according to Operabase) there is the forever young Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute . This fairy tale opera seen Live in HD has everything going for it:  Mozart’s music,  the fantasy of Julie Taymor’s production, and the cast  with Golda Schultz as Pamina to Charles Castronovo’s Tamino,  Rene Pape as Sarastro to Kathryn Lewek as Queen of the Night and Markus Werba as Papageno.   But there is more!  One of the joys of seeing this in  Live in HD was Conductor James Levine’s smiles of joy  as he directed!   Another was  watching interviews by hostess Nadine Sierra as she talked to not only the singers but the puppeteers  (one of the bears did a tap dance  for movie viewer...

NORMA   An opera to make hearts swoon The Met: Live in HD When Norma, that Druid priestess chooses to walk into her death by fire for her sins, she stepped into opera immortality, only to be resurrected every decade when a cast of singers converge who can give divine deliverance of Bellini’s blessed opera.  That day is now — with the Met’s production of Norma , with Sondra Radvanovsky in the lead role.  Her protege priestess-in-training  and rival in love is Joyce DiDonato in her first undertaking of the role of Adalgisa.   The pairing of the two for the beloved soprano duets, is wrought with the conflicting emotions of two very good women entangled in relationships with one forbidden lover.  (Tenor Joseph Calleja is the Roman proconsul, Pollione)   And if it seems too unbelievable that these good women are so enthralled with the deity while fighting over a man,  their singing together has been proclaimed divine...

TOMAS SARACENO  ENTANGLED ORBITS     BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART Clouds, bubbles, and spider webs What can they have in common?   Each is a model from nature, a masterpiece of architectural design, in which to view not only beauty but adaptability and integrity in natural formations.  Tomas Saraceno is an Argentinian-born, Berlin-based artist and architect inspired by these structures.      His exhibit Entangled Orbits at the Baltimore Museum of Art until June 2018, will undoubtedly inspire others. Saraceno’s works are diverse with a underlying quality of engaging the mind and the spirit simultaneously.  Each of the four major works are in their own space, offering both contrasts in styles and continuity of themes of the artist’s work. Entangled Orbits captures the light and sky of the outdoors blending with the floors and the walls the East Lobby to direct  one’s vision upwards   for a...