Criticultura em Portugal

On my recent London trip, I experienced two visions of early twentieth century decadence: the musical Cabaret  and, on the way back, the Metropolitan Opera's live broadcast DVD version of Richard Strauss' Salome . Despite the efforts of the Cabaret production team to shock us with 21st century sexuality, the 1905 Strauss opera had the greater impact and shock value. This production of  Cabaret  has been playing for over a year in London, with an evolving cast. You enter the theater by descending a narrow, vaguely ominous stairway, and traverse several smoky corridors before emerging into a modified theater in which the ground floor is set up as a club, with small tables, people drinking cocktails, and entertainment by scantily clad musicians playing jazz on accordions, violins, and clarinets. This is a memorable intro to the portrayed decadence of 1930's Berlin, the setting of the play. I was seated in the "club" area, but other patrons were seated in traditional ...

 I recently spent three days in London, seeing four plays. Three were new, and one of these, Giant  by Mark Rosenblatt, was terrific--the best new play I have seen since the 2017's  The Ferryman by Jex Butterworth.  Giant won this year's Olivier Award for Best New Play, and dramatizes a true episode from late in the life of renowned British author Roald Dahl ( James and the Giant Peach) . In 1982 Dahl wrote a review of a book that documented the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. In the review Dahl was harshly condemning of Israel, accusing the country of genocide (strong echoes of our current situation). He angered many readers by interchanging criticisms of "Israel" and "the Jews" in his review, receiving international condemnation. In this play a representative of Dahl's publisher flies to London to convince him to retract his statements, feeling that 1. they were wrong and 2. they would lead to catastrophic decreases of his book sales. Playwright...

A European choral tradition that I recently experienced for the first time was the annual performance of the JS Bach Passion According to St. Matthew  at the renowned Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. On the face of it, this seems unlikely as a family holiday event--this work often extends longer than three hours, even four in some traditional older performances. But not in Amsterdam! Families abounded, and there were in fact April Concertgebouw performances by two different orchestras, totaling nine (!) sold out performances. The Dutch like their Bach.  A sung Passion tells the story of the last hours of Jesus' life, including the crucifixion and entombment, stopping just before the resurrection. It is typically done in churches on Good Friday, two days before Easter Day. Bach wrote three versions, of which only the St. Matthew and St John survive intact. They would typically be done in two parts in Lutheran churches, with the congregants sitting in cold churches on hard woode...

 I think Madama Butterfly  is Puccini's greatest opera. It has a famed soprano lead, with perhaps the most famous aria of all time ("Un bel di"). Unlike La Boheme, a one act wonder (but what a first act!), Butterfly starts strong with a sublime Act 1 love duet and builds to a cataclysmic finish with Cio-Cio-San's suicide. Unlike  Turandot , it is complete. Unlike Tosca, it does not rely on gimmicky plot twists (eg a fake firing squad) but instead tells a down to earth human story (love, betrayal, cultural incompetence). The music is relentlessly gorgeous, exemplifying the strengths of post-romantic harmony pushing all the way up against its boundaries. The score is glorious from moment one, when a Bachian fugue set to "Asian" motifs emphasizes the recurring West vs. East theme of the opera. The orchestral dynamics are extreme and almost violent, pushing the romantic era to it's emotional apex. It is one of my favorite operas to listen to, just for the or...

 I just came back from a one week railroad blitz to central Europe, including four concerts in five days. Two of them featured symphonic concerts by prominent European orchestras.  First, I saw the renowned Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) under its principal conductor Kirill Petrenko, at the Baden Baden Easter Festival in southwest Germany. The town is charming but a bit sleepy, set up for spa visitors, Black Forest hikers, and intermittent classical musical fans. The 2500 seat theater, equipped for opera, is the largest in Germany and draws lots of big time performers including the BPO. They had a tiff with their longtime spring festival home in Salzburg a few years back (apparently Salzburg was resistant to innovative programming), so have since been residing in Baden Baden.  I saw their last concert at the 2025 Easter Festival before the orchestra returns to Salzburg next year (apparently Salzburg conceded to the BPO demands), so the audience was extra appreciative...