The English National Ballet’s Tribute to Roland Petit by Huntley Dent

Berkshirereview

Stilettos, ready! To keep the audience entertained, the postwar French choreographer Roland Petit resorted to high jinks, low jinks, whatever jinks he could summon. He's a one-man, nonstop coup de theatre. Petit's women, long-legged and aloof, aren't asked to be graceful so much as dangerous and strange: they slither, prance and stamp, opening and closing their knees in insectoid twitches and mechanical jerks. It's as if they are perched on high-heeled toes. The men must earn advanced degrees in acrobatics (with post-graduate liniment for their abused muscles) to perform Petit's Cirque de Soleil cartwheels, tumbling, and feats of strength (such as forming a human bridge for the ballerina to stretch out on — at least she doesn't walk over it in stilettos). These antics were on display in a triple bill mounted by the ever-ebullient English National Ballet, the romping younger sibling of the Royal Ballet, which soberly covets its right of primogeniture.

Read the full review at the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the arts!

Prom 13: Verdi’s Requiem by Huntley Dent

Verdi-1872
Temporary immortality. The Verdi Requiem is an event, a masterpiece, an emotional catharsis, but also an old shoe. Well worn by dozens of recordings since two great ones, by Toscanini and De Sabata, started the grooves turning, it hasn't been saved from familiarity by being magnificent, any more than the Grand Canyon has. What do you do to breathe life back into music that has been worn down by so many feet? (I apologize to readers who feel that I'm asking the equivalent of "Caviar again? Didn't we have that yesterday?")

Read the full review at The Berkshire Review, an international review for the arts!

A Woman Killed with Kindness at the National Theatre, London, by Lucy Kellett


Sandy McDade as Susan and Leo Bill as Sir Charles Mountford. Photo Stephen Cummiskey.

A Woman Killed with Kindness
by Thomas Heywood

Directed by Katie Mitchell
National Theatre, London

Cast:
Master Wendoll – Sebastian Armesto
Sir Charles Mountford – Leo Bill
Ensemble — Nick Blakeley
Master Cranwell — Louis Brooke
Jane Trubkin — Josie Daxter
Cicely — Kate Duchêne
Sir Francis Acton — Nick Fletcher
Nicholas — Gawn Grainger
Ensemble — Tom Kay
Isabel Motley — Esther McAuley
Susan Mountford — Sandy McDade
Jenkin — Rob Ostlere
Roger Spigot — Leighton Pugh
John Frankford — Paul Ready
Master Malby — Hugh Sachs
Master Shafton — George Taylor
Anne Frankford — Liz White
Thomas – Gilbert Wynne

Whether or not Charles Lamb was over-generous in calling Heywood “Shakespeare in prose," it quickly becomes evident watching Katie Mitchell’s production of his best work A Woman Killed With Kindness (first performed in 1603) that neither director nor cast have much faith in his literary merits. Frenetic stage action across an expensively exquisite split-set by Lizzie Clachan and Vicki Mortimer aims to literally bulk out what the company clearly believes is an insubstantial text, one merely possessing salacious plot elements for a prurient modern audience seeking high-brow soap-opera. In the comfortable house to the right we have the unhappy marriage of John Frankford and his wife, destroyed by her infidelity with their houseguest, Wendoll, while she is heavily pregnant. To the left, in a grander but colder manor, Anne’s brother Sir Francis Acton engages in an altogether less lusty and consenting relationship with Susan, the woman he is offered as compensation for bailing her murderer brother Sir Charles Mountford – by Charles himself.


Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International journal for the Arts!







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A Woman Killed with Kindness at the National Theatre

Whether or not Charles Lamb was over-generous in calling Heywood “Shakespeare in prose," it quickly becomes evident watching Katie Mitchell’s production of his best work A Woman Killed With Kindness (first performed in 1603) that neither director nor cast have much faith in his literary merits. Frenetic stage action across an expensively exquisite split-set by Lizzie Clachan and Vicki Mortimer aims to literally bulk out what the company clearly believes is an insubstantial text, one merely possessing salacious plot elements for a prurient modern audience seeking high-brow soap-opera. In the comfortable house to the right we have the unhappy marriage of John Frankford and his wife, destroyed by her infidelity with their houseguest, Wendoll, while she is heavily pregnant. To the left, in a grander but colder manor, Anne’s brother Sir Francis Acton engages in an altogether less lusty and consenting relationship with Susan, the woman he is offered as compensation for bailing her murderer brother Sir Charles Mountford – by Charles himself.

Read the full review by Lucy Kellett at the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts.

Vassily Primakov plays Schubert, Schumann, and Rachmaninoff at Tannery Pond, by Michael Miller


Vassily Primakov

Tannery Pond Concerts, Saturday, July 24, 2011
Franz Schubert - 14 Waltzes (Suite compiled by V. Primakov)
Robert Schumann - Piano Sonata No. 3, Opus 14
Sergei Rachmaninoff - 12 Preludes (from Op. 3, 23, & 32)
Vassily Primakov, piano

Vassily Primakov's piano recital has been the most anticipated event of the Tannery Pond season. It is hard to believe that he is only thirty and still viewed by many as a young or emerging artist. This is certainly not evident in his mature musicianship and in nature of his repertory, which includes some important contemporary works, like Poul Ruders' Piano Concerto, which was written expressly for him, along with some challenging nineteenth century compositions outside the basic repertory, like Tchaikovsky's The Seasons and Grand Sonata, the Dvořák Piano Concerto, and now Schumann's Third Piano Sonata in F Minor, which he played in this recital in Schumann's first version, which has an extra movement, a scherzo following the first movement—a rarity which was definitely among the treasures of the evening.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International journal for the Arts!







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Stephen Sondheim’s Road Show at Menier Chocolate Factory by Huntley Dent

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Music at the close. The adage is leave 'em wanting more, not less, but Stephen Sondheim has barely skirted the latter fate. At eighty-one, he's been erratically revising a problem child since 1999 that is now called, blandly, Road Show. Under various uninspired titles — Wise Guys, Gold!, and Bounce — the musical flipped and flopped around the country from Chicago to New York and Washington D.C. At every step of the way Sondheim, being Sondheim, attracted the biggest names to direct and star, including Hal Prince and Nathan Lane. But no luck.

Read the full review at The Berkshire Review, an international journal of the arts!

Alan Miller

Steve Levin, Recent Work, Williams College Museum of Art. Winter and Spring 2011, by Richard Harrington


Recent Work: Aida Laleian and Steve Levin, February 26 - April 24, 2011

I’ve been familiar with Steve Levin’s paintings for several years now, and have admired their polished originality. It’s great to have the opportunity to discuss what makes them so mystifying. I said have the opportunity, it’s actually more like the opportunity was created. Williamstown is easier to get to than the other national locations, where Steve has had representation.

The very first impression created by hisrecent show (together with his wife, photographer Aida Laleian, which will be the subject of a separate article) at the Williams College Museum of Art was that the paintings feel like they’re exactly where they belong. A glance at the sophistication of the frames, and the careful placement of the works gave everything a sense of rightness and seriousness. Time is an important theme in Steve’s work that I’ll try to talk about later, but for now, I’ll briefly mention that there’s a feeling that the subject matter has been filtered through an ironic lens possibly influenced by someone like Spike Jones.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International journal for the Arts!







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Crossing Over: Deborah Voigt in Annie Get Your Gun at Glimmerglass

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Did it all start with Ezio Pinza – this crossover practice of opera stars singing American musical theatre? Pinza certainly was the most famous, making ladies of the late 1940s swoon in Rogers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. The latest crossover explorer is Deborah Voigt singing the role of Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun at Glimmerglass. Playing Annie gives her something in common with Susan Lucci, the soap opera actress; Reba McEntire, the country singer; as well as Ethel Merman. Unexpected company for an internationally renowned dramatic soprano.

Annie Get Your Gun is based on the true story of Annie Oakley, a petite sharpshooter from Darke County, Ohio. When the naïve, illiterate backwoods girl arrives in Cincinnati with her younger siblings to sell animals she’s killed, she is enlisted by a local innkeeper into a shooting challenge sponsored as a promotion by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show: They’ll give $100 to any local person who can beat their star, Frank Butler (San Francisco Opera baritone, Rod Gilfry). Oakley immediately falls head over heels for Frank, outshoots him, wins the money and joins the show; Frank falls for Annie as well. Thinking she’s going to make him love her even more, she surprises him with a complicated shooting trick for the show. Instead, his ego crushed, Frank leaves both her and Buffalo Bill Cody’s show and joins the rival Pawnee Bill's Far East Show.

Read the full review by Nancy Salz at the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts.

Schiller’s “Luise Miller” at the Donmar Warehouse, London by Huntley Dent

Donmar-luise-miller-alex-kings

Star-crossed Geliebte. The trouble with taking Shakespeare as your model is that you can't hide it and you will always be in his shadow. In 1784, writing his third play, Friedrich Schiller remixed the ingredients of Romeo and Juliet to concoct his perfervid tragedy, Luise Miller. Two lovers die by drinking poison at the end, and there are contending fathers, anguished partings, and extravagant avowals of undying passion ("undying" seems to be an automatic death sentence in the theater). Without the poetry, Shakespeare loses an immeasurable amount, but the twenty-four-year-old Schiller was left with a template for doomed romance. He made extraordinary use of it, and although Luise Miller contains no Mercutio, emotions get so capriciously out of hand that it can seem as if everyone on stage is a Mercutio.

Read the full review at the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!
Andrew Miller

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, Williamstown Theatre Festival, NIkos Stage, July 20 – 31, by Michael Miller


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Michael Maher, Lily Rabe, and Josh Hamilton in A Doll's House at Williamstown Theatre Festival. Photo T. Charles Erickson.

A Doll's House
by Henrik Ibsen

Williamstown Theatre Festival, NIkos Stage
July 20 – 31

translated by Paul Walsh
directed by Sam Gold
scenic design - David Korins
costume design - Kaye Voyce
lighting design - Ben Stanton
sound design - Jane Shaw
movement consultant - Dontee Kiehn

Torvald Helmer - Josh Hamilton
Anne-Marie - Zainab Jah
Dr. Rank - Matthew Maher
Nora Helmer - Lily Rabe
Nils Krogstadt - Adam Rothenberg
Kristine Linde - Lili Taylor

One more delicious and satisfying classic in the Nikos. Following the intimate character of A Streetcar Named Desire, the Williamstown Theatre Festival has served the playwright and the public most honorably in Sam Gold's production of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House. LikeStreetcar, the production was meticulously detailed, scrupulously respectful of the play (whatever liberties might have been taken), and full of life, thanks to some vivid performances by outstanding actors. Jenny Gersten's WTF seems to be hitting its stride in these physically small, but richly imagined performances, a new feature of the Festival since the construction of the "62 Center. Perhaps we should remember that what is now the subsidiary Nikos stage used to be the Adams Memorial Theater, and that an attempt to stage Chekhov's Three Sisters on the Main Stage as a luxury production was a notable failure, not that there haven't been some outstanding successes there as well.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International journal for the Arts!







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