Criticultura em Portugal

Richard Goode, piano Lincoln Center Alice Tully Hall April 17, 2018 Leon Fleisher, pianist/conductor The Peabody Conservatory Chamber Orchestra Town Hall, Manhattan April 15, 2018 The renowned New York pianist Richard Goode (b. 1943) is best known for his complete recorded Beethoven sonatas and for music of the classical era generally. His recent wide-ranging Lincoln Center recital largely disappointed outside his Beethoven core. He began with an unusual offering, Two Pavanes and Galliards by Renaissance composer William Byrd. These pieces are usually played on the virginal or harpsichord, and while the piano could in theory be a viable alternative, Goode did not emphasize the dance character adequately to make the pieces come alive. Comparatively, Bach is more often played on the piano, even though written for harpsichord; the standard of Bach playing from young pianists has risen in recent years, so that I now expect crystalline clarity and inner voice emphasis t...

The Iceman Cometh Written by Eugene O’Neill Directed by George C. Wolfe Starring Denzel Washington, David Morse, and Colm Meaney Bernard B. Jacobs Theater, Manhattan April 5, 2018 The best plays, like The Iceman Cometh , are both timeless and specifically resonant to many eras. I had the privilege to see this outstanding production just after Easter/Passion week, and alongside many specials on cable TV about the last days of Martin Luther King. The play resonated with both. O’Neill’s mini-passion play is set wholly in a bar, featuring 12 drunken “apostles” (13 male characters, but the day and night bartenders alternate onstage) who await an arriving “Christ” figure (Hickey, a salesman played by the wonderful Denzel Washington), a “Judas” (the young Don Parrot, who guiltily commits suicide after betraying his socialist mother to authorities) and three “women at the cross” (the three hookers). The play is most famous for the recurring word and theme of “pipedream”. Each drunken ch...

Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day Written and Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder I have never been a huge fan of the films of German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982). Fassbinder was prolific (40 movies in 15 years), proudly and explicitly gay as a writer/director in an era where non-porno gay films were rare, and fond of exploring the middle and underclasses of German society. This sometimes reflected his sexual proclivities, which were for young street-tough “trade” pickups. His movies often have a griminess and oiliness that makes me want to shower on emerging from them. He is also noted for his dark humor mixed with often-unrelenting depressiveness, with protagonists dying in gas explosions ( The Marriage of Maria Braun ) atom bombs and serial vehicular homicide ( Berlin Alexanderplatz ), and masochistic suicide ( The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant ). His main output was films, but he did make a couple TV miniseries for West German TV, the most famous of which is th...

Kings Written by Sarah Burgess Directed by Thomas Kail Starring Eisa Davis, Zach Grenier, and Gillian Jacobs New York Public Theater March 22, 2018 Kings is the sort of play that seems to exemplify the NY Public Theater. It is well-crafted, lefty political, and plays as somewhat of a tonic to liberal New Yorkers dismayed by the current environment. Playwright Sarah Burgess is known for her 2016 play Dry Powder which skewered the world of equity traders (or not-so-equity traders). Kings does the same for Washington D.C. lobbying. It was an interesting 100 minutes, but failed to cover much new ground in the familiar Washington-insider format. The play centers around Rep. Sydney Millsap (a convincing Eisa Davis), a newly elected congressman from Dallas, and the first woman and person of color to serve from her district. She comes with many ideals, but quickly sees that much of her time will be not be devoted to effecting change, but instead to getting re-elected in less than...

Lise de la Salle, piano Town Hall, Manhattan March 4, 2018 Michail Lifits, piano Carnegie Hall Weill Recital Hall, Manhattan March 23, 2013 Two recent NYC recitals by young pianists revealed different ways of structuring a recital, neither in the tired tradition of virtuoso barn-burning technical display. Both are competition winners yet eschewed the standard pieces that demonstrate one’s technical prowess that are often done in an initial NYC recital (e.g. Liszt B minor Sonata, Chopin Ballades, Beethoven Appassionata or Hammerklavier , etc.). Lise de la Salle is a 29-year-old French pianist who has recorded a couple Bach CDs. Her recital, blandly narrated by her from the stage, explored Bach’s influences on later composers. This could be a very fertile idea, perhaps delving into the use of counterpoint or fantasia by composers like Mozart, Mendelssohn, or yes, Beethoven or Liszt. She instead stayed more literal, choosing either direct transcriptions of Bach works (Bach/Bu...