Criticultura em Portugal

Swan Lake Choreography by Sir Matthew Bourne Music by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky New York City Center, Manhattan Starring Will Bozier and James Lovell February 9, 2020 Matthew Bourne  (b. 1960) is among the most renowned of modern choreographers, but has often been criticized for his “pop” ballet takes on classics such as The Car Man (based on Bizet’s Carmen) and revivals of classical musicals like My Fair Lady . He tends towards bisexual/polyamorous takes on these classics, and has done so for decades, well ahead of the current trends in art. Perhaps his most famous retake was of Swan Lake , which premiered in 1996 and shocked the establishment for its treatment of the story as a gay coming-out tale, replete with hunky swans. This famous production recently completed a worldwide, yearlong tour with a sold-out NYC engagement. The fame of this production is now such that Matthew Ball, a principal dancer of the Royal Ballet, was flown in to share the role of The Swan/Th...

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice Book by Jonathan Mark Sherman Music by Duncan Sheik Lyrics by Duncan Sheik and Amanda Green Directed by Scott Elliott My main response to the new musical Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice that recently opened off-Broadway at the New Group is, why? The New Group has in recent years put out a number of pointless musicals largely designed to appeal to a nostalgic TV/movie fan niche audience (e.g. Clueless , Cyrano with Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage). There was also a clever but unmemorable Jerry Springer, the Opera that fused political themes with pop culture. Is it out of the question for musical theater to challenge or engage the heart and the brain? Obviously not, considering Sondheim and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s work. But this combination was not to be found in this musical treatment of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. This was the 1969 Paul Mazursky film that gently parodied the cultural trends of the sixties: fre...

Medea Written by Simon Stone (after Euripides) Directed by Simon Stone Starring Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale Brooklyn Academy of Music January 27, 2020 Like most plays written in classical Athens, Medea is based on ancient legends that had been kicking around the Mediterranean for centuries. I mostly remember it as about a woman who kills her children, but the ancient sources are surprisingly variable about even this key plot point. What is agreed upon is that, on the way home to Greece, the adventurer Jason marries Medea, daughter of the sun god Helios, bears 2-3 children with her, then dumps her in favor of the daughter of king Croesus on arriving home in Corinth. At this point the legends vary wildly. In Euripides’ classic play, she then becomes an embittered, abandoned wife, and exerts revenge on Jason by killing his children, with the play ending with her in triumph, riding above the stage in Helios’ chariot. Other versions have her children being killed by tow...

New York Philharmonic Orchestra Gustavo Dudamel, conducting Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center, Manhattan January 23, 2020 Gustavo Dudamel recently signed a long term extension of his contract to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, which has grown in prestige and excitement during his tenure since 2009 and during that of his predecessor Esa Pekka Salonen (the conductor from 1989-2009). These are two of the conductors most likely to perk up audience excitement when they tour. This kind of buzz has recently occurred in New York when Dudamel visited for a two week stint at the New York Philharmonic. The concert I saw included the Fourth Symphony of Schubert and the quasi-symphony Das Lied von der Erde by Mahler. The surprising result was that the Schubert outshone the Mahler. The Fourth Symphony of Franz Schubert was composed in 1816, when the composer was nineteen year-old. He was part of the wave of child prodigy composers like Mozart and Mendels...

Queens Row Written and directed by Richard Maxwell Starring Nazira Hanna, Soraya Nabipour, and Antonia Summer New York City Players The Kitchen, Manhattan January 18, 2020 On a snowy evening, I journeyed to the Chelsea piers to a black box theater to see a new, very contemporary play by Richard Maxwell (b. 1967), originally from Fargo ND, but now a true Manhattanite in experimental style. He is known for his blank sets, focus on unadorned actors speaking plainly, and apocalyptic visions. Queens Row definitely fell into some of these baskets. The play consists of three twenty minute monologues delivered by different women, each speaking from a slightly raised circular podium on an all-black set. There is a fourth “character”, the lighting design by Sascha van Riel , an amazing panoply of strobes, spotlights, smoke, and penetrating laser-like beams that emerged from the floor, sometimes illustrating the character’s emotions or thought, sometimes seemingly with their own ...