A.B.T. decided to give us a double dose of Kenneth MacMillan during the season just ended: a week each of Romeo and Juliet and Manon. But although the two ballets are similar in many ways, there’s a difference in kind. Romeo is a carefully mounted romantic spectacle, tedious at times but relatively stage-worthy. Manon is Read More
Doug Varone’s Castles is the best new dance piece I’ve seen in a long time. I watched it, with growing admiration, on three consecutive nights. It brings together, distilled and heightened, the qualities Varone is generally known for-the physical excitement, the depth of feeling, the implication of story (but what story?). And Castles perfectly suits Read More
Opera-the most problematic of entertainments-is also the art form
most capable of breathing fresh life into a historical episode, a buried myth
or a work of literature through the transforming powers of musical imagination,
theatrical compression and live, flesh-and-blood performance. An unexpected
demonstration of just how potent this alchemy can be took place at the Read More
The extent to which a symphony orchestra gains its identity from the qualities of its hall has always been a fascinating question. Did the Philadelphia Orchestra develop its plush sound to compensate for the dryness of the Academy of Music? Has the complacency that sometimes seems to have settled over the Boston Symphony been encouraged, Read More
