Criticultura em Portugal

NDR Elbphilharmonie Sakari Oramo, conducting Magnus Lindberg: Accused Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 in D major , Op. 43 Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg December 6, 2018 Berlin Statskapelle Daniel Barenboim, conducting Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C minor , op. 68 Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D major , op. 73 Berlin Philharmonie December 8, 2018 Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Andris Nelsons, conducting Mahler: Symphony No. 2 in C minor (Resurrection)                             Berlin Philharmonie December 10, 2018 My recent trip to Hamburg and Berlin immersed me in classical music. Besides the three formal orchestra concerts (plus one operetta) I saw, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, and Schumann flowed from nearly every corner, whether at Christmas markets or inside malls, including an excellent high school orchestra playing the Beethoven Ninth in a side hall in a museum. These prompts, plus seeing three orchestra concerts in five days provoked me to think about m

Roma Written and Directed by Alfonso Cuarón My favorite current directors, each with an individual style and penchant for risk-taking, are Paul Thomas Anderson ( Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood ), Michael Hanecke ( The Piano Teacher, The White Ribbon ), Lars von Trier ( Breaking the Waves, Melancholia ), and Alfonso Cuarón. Cuarón has succeeded in a variety of styles, ranging from the realistic road movie Y Tu Mama También (2001) and the apocalyptic sci-fi Children of Men (2006) to perhaps my favorite space movie Gravity (2013). Each left me wondering at his vision of another world. His consistently compelling visual style always leaves me with mind-pictures from the films even after I have forgotten details of the plot. His new film Roma is more of the same, and has all the critics salivating. It is perhaps closest to Y Tu Mama También in conception, returning to autobiographical material from Cuarón’s youth in Roma, a walled-off upper crust enclave of Mexico City. The

Thom Pain (Based on Nothing) Written by Will Eno Directed by Oliver Butler Starring Michael C. Hall Signature Theater, Manhattan November 30, 2018 I’ve been trying to figure out why I was so unimpressed with the current off Broadway production of Will Eno’s Thom Pain (2004), starring everyone’s favorite cuddly sociopath Michael C. Hall ( Six Feet Under, Dexter ). Hall should have been a great match for the dangerous, unhinged ramblings of Thom in this single character 70- minute monologue/play. Comparing this performance to descriptions of the original London run which starred James Urbaniak give some clues. Eno’s play should put you in a claustrophobic cauldron with this uncomfortably deranged guy, and to paraphrase the NYT clinic, make you want to take a shower afterwards. Instead, Hall emerged for group photos with the starstruck audience afterwards. There was little sense of being trapped in a room with a psycho. Some of this was due to the large theater with a hug

American Son Written by Christopher Demos-Brown Directed by Kenny Leon Starring Kerry Washington and Steven Pasquale Booth Theater, NYC November 28, 2018 American Son , written in 2016 by (white) Miami playwright Christopher Demos-Brown, joins the recent parade of plays dealing with the continuing abuses of blacks by law enforcement. It’s an angry, intense single act drama (90 minutes or so) that focuses on a worried mom (the excellent, volcanic Kerry Washington) trying futilely to find out where her missing 18 year-old son is.  The play is entirely set in the waiting room of the Miami police department, and features only four characters: the mom and dad (a mixed race couple), a young well meaning-but-clueless white police officer, and a seasoned-but- frustrated senior black cop. The play’s structure comes from gradually revealing the details of what happened to the missing son Jamal, who drives the drama yet never appears in the play, thus serving the time-hono

The Bacchae Written by Euripides Directed by Anne Bogart Starring Ellen Lauren and Akiko Aizawa SITI Company Brooklyn Academy of Music October 6, 2018 The NYC-based SITI Company was founded in 1992 to “ redefine and revitalize contemporary theater in the United States through an emphasis on international cultural exchange, training, and collaboration” thus “providing a gymnasium-for-the-soul”. Their productions have included Japanese drama, performance art, and a play based on the quotes of wacky composer John Cage. I am not sure what all of this means, but they did put on a provocative version of Euripides  The Bacchae  at BAM in October. It would have been even more cool to see it at its premiere in September at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles, set amidst Greek sculpture and architecture. The performance used a literal translation of the plot, but played around with both gender and culture in its presentation, not always to clear effect. The play centers on a pe

Emma and Max Written and directed by Todd Solondz Starring Zonya Love, Ilana Becker, and Matt Servitto The Flea Theater, Manhattan October 12, 2018 I’m a big fan of the indie director Todd Solondz (b. 1959), whose 1990’s films Happiness and Welcome to the Dollhouse viciously and virtuosically eviscerate the suburban dream. I’ve been saddened that his creative well may have run dry, with little work since 2000. Emma and Max, which just debuted off Broadway , is his first play, and perhaps is an effort to reinvigorate his career writing for the stage. It’s certainly a good start. It bears his distinctive style, with memorable visuals and some shock plotting. But he has not yet learned quite how to pace a drama in the real time of the theater, without the editing and jumps available in film. One of the characteristics of the great 1990s Solondz films is the juxtaposition of innocence and rhapsodic pictures of suburban bliss with the utmost depravity (rape, pedophilia,

Lewiston/Clarkston Written by Samuel D. Hunter Directed by Davis McCallum Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater, Manhattan October 28, 2018 Playwright Samuel D. Hunter (b. 1981) is an Idaho explant now resident in NYC. His award winning The Whale and many of his other plays are personal dramas set in Idaho or similar Western locales. His keen eye for rural people and intergenerational conflict is timely in our re-examination of city vs. country in the Trump era. The small scale plays (3 characters each) Lewiston and Clarkston (2015-16) were presented together in gripping productions off Broadway this fall. Each play was 70-80 minutes long, and there was a “communal dinner” in between (an odd folksy juxtaposition of Manhattanites, either eating BBQ or tofu!). The setting was really great; the regular theater was gutted to create a bleak, small church auditorium with shabby furnishings, folding chairs, and stacked Costco boxes of Cheesy Poofs all around…we could have been any

La Fanciulla del West Composed by Giacomo Puccini Directed by Gregory Keller Production Designed by Giancarlo del Monaco Starring Eva Marie Westbroek and Jonas Kaufmann Metropolitan Opera House October 23, 2018 The True Written by Sharr White Starring Edie Falco and Michael McKean The New Group October 21, 2018 Puccini’s opera La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the West) and Sharr White’s new play The True could not be more different in affect and style. But both were staged in NYC recently in wonderful performances featuring powerful heroines that take no prisoners and struggle to, then finally succeed at success in male-dominated worlds. Both are excellent choices for a year in which women and minorities come to the front in the arts. The Puccini opera, based on a popular play The Girl of the Golden West by David Belasco, premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1910 to popular acclaim, with a star-studded cast featuring Emmy Destinn, Enrico Caruso

American Ballet Theater David Koch Theater, Lincoln Center, Manhattan October 20, 2018 Humans Directed by Yaron Lifschitz Circa Contemporary Circus, Brisbane AUS Brooklyn Academy   of Music October 4, 2018 I saw two very different but entertaining dance evenings in October. The grand American Ballet Theater is known for its full length romantic ballets (like Swan Lake) on the huge stage of the Metropolitan Opera. But in the fall they do an annual series of collections of shorter works in the more viewer-friendly confines of the Koch Theater, normally the purview of the New York City Ballet. This year they intruded on the normal NYCB turf of George Balanchine, performing a wonderful version of his Symphonie Concertante (1945), set to the wonderful concerto for violin and viola by Mozart. The dance oozed classicism, with typical Balanchine tutu-ed ballerinas arrayed in geometrical forms, perfectly shifting to changes in the music. The two instrumental voices (well-

Collective Rage: A Play in Five Betties Written by Jen Silverman Directed by Mike Donahue MCC Theater, Manhattan September 30, 2018 Since this is the year of theater treatments of gender and race issues, we should expect a range of experiences. My last review cast a serious light on the contrasting challenges women face in career vs. mother roles, featuring a dominant Glenn Close as Joan of Arc’s mother. Collective Rage was something entirely different—profane, chaotic, non-noble, but was a more honest treatment of the topic.   This was the funniest play I have seen since Mankind . Interestingly, both were single-sex cast treatments of changing gender roles, here five disparate but uniformly hysterical women portraying a range of women from different generations and economic classes, all named Betty. The word “pussy” probably occurred one hundred times, and was sort of a leitmotiv for explaining all sorts of actions, feelings, and conundrums faced by women in modern soci