Last year, when Bartlett Sher’s production of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown opened on Broadway, Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times, “The distractedness of Women the musical mostly feels born of indecision and even boredom, as if it kept getting tired of whatever it was doing.” The show promptly closed, Read More
Operagoers got a flashback to 1998 at the Metropolitan Opera last Thursday. It was the beginning of the second act of the Met’s new production of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann, directed by Bartlett Sher. The curtain rose on an almost bare stage. Against a background of rich, dark blue, a white panel slowly began to Read More
“He’s got everything I encourage my students to aspire to,” Marilyn Horne said to me a few weeks ago during the intermission of a recital by the young Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez in Oberlin College’s acoustically wonderful Finney Chapel. “His understanding of musical style is impeccable. His sound is glorious. And he really connects. Read More
“He’s got everything I encourage my students to aspire to,” Marilyn Horne said to me a few weeks ago during the intermission of a recital by the young Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez in Oberlin College’s acoustically wonderful Finney Chapel. “His understanding of musical style is impeccable. His sound is glorious. And he really connects. Read More
I think, on reflection, that it would be a good thing if we could agree to a moratorium on all productions of Shakespeare that are set in the Wild West.
Rest assured, I’ve nothing against cowboys. How manly they can look on the range, with their 10-gallon hats and bull whips. I would also hope Read More
