Archive for March, 2008
Macbeth
Michael Miller reviews this now famous production of Macbeth, starring Patrick Stewart, at its run with the Chichester Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Café des Artistes, New York
So much has been said about the current craze for restaurant-going by people who are striving to understand it, either for enlightenment or profit, that it seems a truism to observe that a visit to a restaurant is a kind of travel, not entirely ersatz, but something between dreaming of Capri in an armchair and jumping on the train to Fire Island. The decorator has provided the sets, the chef a motive for going there, the staff a supporting cast; the diners at the table have their relationships, their hierarchy, and their desires, and, if the evening out is going to be any fun, they’re ready to play their roles. Dining out is also a self-generated theater, the ultimate interactive entertainment. It can be a journey in time, as well as a mildly-imagined land travel. Most people will go out for something old just as readily as something new, although the longevity of restaurants is tenuous enough these days to put that in question.
Gary Lehman and Janice Baird Sing Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the Metropolitan Opera
The evening began with Peter Gelb’s suave announcement that Ben Heppner was ill and recovering at home in Canada. He reminded the audience that only perhaps five tenors in the world were able to sing Tristan, but a replacement had been found, a tenor named Gary Lehman, who would be singing the role for the first time in public. Great promises he did not make. It would be wonderful to say that Lehman electrified the house and became an instant star, just like in the movies—not so, unfortunately, but almost. As pleasing and appropriate as Lehman’s very attractive dark, baritonal voice was, and as thorough as his understanding of the role, and as elegant and intelligent his phrasing, especially in the quieter, more reflective passages, it might have been better for him to have sung the role for a few years in smaller opera houses—there must be some left in Germany or Scandinavia that would still tackle Tristan—before taking the plunge at the Met. What’s more, he is a tall, handsome fellow who actually looks like what we expect Tristan to look like.
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