Berkshire Review for the Arts

Opera as Oxymoron: Pelléas et Mélisande at the Met

Larry Wallach — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 01:11:08 +0000

Metropolitan Opera House January 1, 2011 Claude Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande Libretto by Maurice Maeterlinck Pelléas - Stéphane Dégout Mélisande - Magdalena Kožená Golaud - Gerald Finley Arkel - Willard White Geneviève - Felicity Palmer Yniold - Neel Ram Nagarajan Physician - Paul Corona Shepherd - Donovan Singletary Metropolitan Opera Orchestra Conductor - Sir Simon [...]

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Madama Butterfly at the Sydney Opera House

Andrew Miller — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 05:39:29 +0000

One could say that Madama Butterfly is a distilled and simplified presentation of the stereotypical opera plot. It is a romance told very straight with spurning, madness leading to the female lead's suicide with good songs and a bit of exoticism, but it lacks the twists in the plot which Mozart's operas have (at least Donna Elvira tries to chase down Don Giovanni) to deepen the characters' relationships. This leaves all the characterization to...

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A Singer’s Notes 27: Christmas Past

Keith Kibler — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 16:52:40 +0000

Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" is a moralizing tale, strictly speaking. It's one of those that's mostly tough with the sweetmeats at the end. It's a story you already know. It is such a good tale structurally that it has proved irresistible to tinkerers of all sorts. The layout works. It has a little bit of everything — ghosts, little children, Christmas stuff, a happy ending. It seems to me the great message of the story is not the happy result...

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St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Troy presents a FREE recital with Kara Cornell, mezzo-soprano and Joshua Tanis, piano – Tuesday, January 18th at noon

The Editor — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 15:32:54 +0000

St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Troy presents a FREE celebration of American music with Kara Cornell, mezzo-soprano and Joshua Tanis, piano Tuesday, January 18th at noon St. Paul's Episcopal Church 58 Third Street Troy, NY 12180

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In Memoriam Steven Dennis Bodner (1975-2011), Artist-in-Residence, Williams College

Keith Kibler — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 11:23:41 +0000

Steven was an impassioned artist who always spoke quietly in rehearsal. Indefatigable, his conducting style was something like a smooth shake, a revolving. Precision and passion are not often balanced in a person without effort, but they were in Steven. Steven had something of the hair-shirted prophet about him, especially regarding the music he believed in. He had to endure considerable disappointment on this front. Much of the time his...

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Samuel Barber’s Piano Concerto: another superb performance from Tonu Kalam and the UNC Orchestra with Molly Morkoski, Piano

The Editor — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:37:23 +0000

I've known Tonu Kalam's sensitive and intelligent musicianship for many years, and I'm delighted that some of his performances have started to trickle through on YouTube. Molly Makoski's technically impressive and insightful performance is anothe

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Wagner, Die Walküre, at La Scala under Barenboim, in Guy Cassier’s Production (Toneelhuis, Antwerp)

Michael Miller — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 19:02:02 +0000

It is a curiosity of our times that I write this review of La Scala’s sixth and last performance of their new production of Die Walküre several weeks after audiences around the world have seen high definition video projections of earlier performances of the same production. A friend of mine residing in the Midwest has already seen it twice, but questions remain: seeing a broadcast through the eyes of video cameras is not the same as sitting in...

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Bronzino: Medici Court Painter and Poet at the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence

Daniel B. Gallagher — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 13:00:44 +0000

Complementing the drawings shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last year is this exhibition at the Strozzi Palace featuring fifty-four of Bronzino’s seventy paintings: the largest exhibition of the Florentine master’s work to date. The son of a butcher, Agnolo di Cosimo Tori (1503-1572), nicknamed “Bronzino”, spent the bulk of his career in the Medici court until Giorgio Vasari succeeded him in 1564. Vasari in fact plays a large role in this...

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Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande at the Metropolitan Opera House

Emma Collins — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 11:00:32 +0000

There was a grand sense of occasion as one filed into the Metropolitan Opera house on the evening of December 20th 2010. The strange and mystical energy of the holidays added a humming buzz to what was already an anticipation-filled atmosphere haunting the foyer. One had the impression of being about to see something important: but covertly important, as though a secret society of only those truly in the know were about to be witness to the...

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Rome meets Mexico. A special contribution to celebrate the 150 years of independence of the Central American country and an exploration of its art.

Silvia Magna — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 23:12:45 +0000

Mexican art comes to Rome, making the present and the past converge, combining the crafts of the most ancient civilizations with photographic images of the revolution of the first decades of the twentieth century and once again with the contemporary creations of Carlos Morales. A panoramic experience which can stimulate the mind, as it seeks points of contact in the evolution of Mexican culture and thought.

Here is the latest on the Berkshire Review for the Arts. Click on the headings to visit the site and read the full articles.