Friday, October 23, 2020

 


We have been quarantined for the past 8 months.  It hasn't been so bad because we love reading and we enjoy being with each other.


At the same time, everything we came to New York City is closed now.  There is no music, no theater, no dance, reduced dining and museums.   We no longer ride the subway but ride Lyft of Uber to get around town.


We still love being here and have no plans to leave.


We'll see... ?

Friday, June 12, 2020




Covid-19 Rules!

We have been self-quarantined just under 100 hundred days now.  We are doing well physically and emotionally.  Our lives have centered around reading, eating, and watching documentaries.  We're learning a lot!

Our Spring 2020 season for all performing arts has been closed and now we learn that the Fall 2020 season is now also cancelled.  All performing arts organizations are taking a big hit.  On the personal level, our sadness is with the musicians and actors.  This is devastating for them.  All restaurants are closed for dining and many stalwarts are saying they are now closed permanently.  Another tragedy.

Layered on top of the pandemic, we've also suffered in NYC through the killing of George Floyd and then the riots and demonstrations that have followed.  NYC has been tragically shaken for almost half a year with no end in sight.

Here is a link to a site showing much of what we've seen over these past several months...

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0GGQOeMmJFIGEB

These are tough times for our country.  Knowing that, we remain optimistic and hopeful for our country.

Thursday, April 9, 2020



COVID-19 NYC 2020


Today is our 29th day of being self-quarantined.

Or as I say, it’s the same day for the 29th time!

I take the trash across the hall, I go to the lobby late in the evening to get the mail and deliveries, and we occasionally go to the high terrace.

Other than that, we, haven’t left the apartment.

We have Fresh Direct for our food, Epic Spirits for our wine and Gin, and Amazon for all the rest.

We read books, papers and computers and we watch a movie or documentary together every day.

We climb 4 flights of stairs in the stairwell every day.

Emotionally and physically we are doing very well.

We consider ourselves as being among the fortunate ones.

We are doing this because I do not want to get sick.

Being healthy and confined to our apartment is so much better than being sick and sent to a hospital which is over whelmed, over run, and over crowded.

Our belief is that the worst is yet to come for all of us.

We’re hunkered down and, hopefully, ready.

Below is a site with some images from our apartment that will give you a sense of what’s going on.

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0GGQOeMmJFIGEB









Tuesday, March 10, 2020




LINCOLN CENTER

David Geffen Hall
New York Philharmonic

Louis Langrée - Conductor
Isabel Leonard - Mezzo-Soprano
Women’s Chorus from The Juilliard School - Pierre Vallet, chorus master

Debussy - Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
Debussy - Nocturnes
Ravel - Shéhérazade
Scriabin - Le Poème de l’extase

"Louis Langrée conducts French masterpieces. Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, with shimmering sounds from the sinuous flute introduction to the final languorous chords. Nocturnes’s vivid images of clouds, festivals, and seductive siren songs. Met Opera star Isabel Leonard (Marnie) sings Ravel’s exotic song cycle Shéhérazade. Plus, Scriabin’s sensuous tone poem that ends in ecstasy."



















Sunday, March 8, 2020




THEATER

McKittrick Hotel
Sleep No More

A trailer...

A video description of the performance...

HOTEL HISTORY

"Completed in 1939, The McKittrick Hotel was intended to be New York City’s finest and most decadent luxury hotel of its time. Six weeks before opening, and two days after the outbreak of World War II, the legendary hotel was condemned and left locked, permanently sealed from the public. Until now…

EMURSIVE has brought the Grande Dame back to life. Collaborating with London’s award-winning PUNCHDRUNK, the legendary space is reinvented with SLEEP NO MORE, presenting Shakespeare’s classic Scottish tragedy through the lens of suspenseful film noir. Audiences move freely through a transporting world at their own pace, choosing their own path through the story, immersed in the most unique theatrical experience in New York."

"Sleep No More is an indoor promenade performance lasting up to three hours. There are five arrival times for each performance ranging from 3:00pm-11:30pm depending on the day of the week. After admission, guests embark upon an individual journey and may stay inside the performance for as long as they wish. Following the culminating moment of the performance guests are welcome to stay on at the Manderley Bar.

All guests are required to wear a mask while inside the hotel for Sleep No More. The mask will be provided upon arrival."






Shakespeare Slept Here, Albeit Fitfully


Theater Review | 'Sleep No More'

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Those pushy Macbeths may be backstabbing social climbers, but you must admit that their new digs are to die for. The Thane of Cawdor and his wife have moved into a deserted hotel in the hinterlands of the West 20s, and my dear, what they’ve done with the place. Don’t be surprised if it shows up soon on the cover of Architectural Digest, bloodstains and all.

Punchdrunk, a British site-specific theater company, has taken over three abandoned warehouses on West 27th Street to enact the sorry sights of the murderous Macbeths’ career in a movable orgy titled “Sleep No More.” And the resulting adventure in décor — a 1930s pleasure palace called the McKittrick — suggests what might have happened had Stanley Kubrick (of “Eyes Wide Shut” and “The Shining”) been asked to design the Haunted Mansion at Disney World, with that little old box maker Joseph Cornell as a consultant.

New Yorkers with fond memories of nights out in the era of theme-park clubs like Area and MK have the chance to relive their salad days with this production (if they can score tickets). But they should know that sentimentally partaking of any mood-altering substances is inadvisable.

An unimpaired sense of balance and depth perception is crucial to attending “Sleep No More,” which leads its audience on a merry, macabre chase up and down stairs, and through minimally illuminated, furniture-cluttered rooms and corridors. The creative team here has taken on the duties of messing with your head, which they do just as thoroughly as any artificial stimulant.

You’ll notice that so far I have not mentioned the name of the writer who immortalized Macbeth. Though the title of “Sleep No More” and much of its shadow of a plot do come from the compact tragedy that is a favorite of high school English classes, this is not the place to look for insights into Shakespeare. (For those, you would be better off checking out the current Cheek by Jowl or Theater for a New Audience productions of “Macbeth,” in which the emphasis is on interior worlds instead of the World of Interiors.)

But this largely wordless production, directed by Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle (and designed by Mr. Barrett, Livi Vaughan and Beatrice Minns), is not without thought-churning aperçus. These have less to do with the comely dancers who act out the doomed paths of Macbeth and company than with those clumsy, anonymous lugs in white face masks who keep elbowing one another out of the way to get a better view of the sex and violence. That’s you and me, my fellow theatergoers.

You see, everyone who attends “Sleep No More” is required to wear (and keep on) a Venetian carnival-style mask. You are also asked not to utter a word during the two and a half hours you are given to follow the characters of your choice from room to room. But you are encouraged to poke around in corners and trunks and bookcases, and allowed to get as close as (in)decency permits to the lithe-bodied denizens of this chic spook house. (Just don’t touch them, though they may well reach out and touch you.)

“Sleep No More” is, in short, a voyeur’s delight, with all the creepy, shameful pleasures that entails. As conceived by Punchdrunk (which took a similar approach to an operatic version of “The Duchess of Malfi” in London last summer), this tale of regicide taps the same impulses that draw us to Agatha Christie mysteries and sensational tabloids, flavored with the snob appeal of biographies of self-destructive aristocrats.

The idea is once you’re let loose on one of the floors of the hotel, you pick out a single character and pursue him or her (though you can switch any time you want), as the performer runs, dances and vaults all over the place. Dressed in drop-dead, Deco-era evening clothes, scanty lingerie or nothing at all, these characters include the Macbeths (of course), Macduff and his wife (who is conspicuously pregnant), Duncan (the king) and various witches and hotel employees. (Because the roles are mostly double-cast, I am not mentioning individual performers, but they are all lissome enough to make the audience look slow and dumpy.)

These jaded figures can be found in bedrooms, bathrooms, ballrooms, hospital rooms and nurseries getting dressed and undressed, doing the foxtrot, making every kind of love, killing one another and washing off blood. (The Macbeth mansion has many bathtubs.) 

Choreographed by Ms. Doyle, these activities are executed with tense balletic virtuosity by neurotic, anguished and gymnastic creatures, who climb the walls (I mean literally) in moments of high stress.
The knockout set pieces (and the detail in every room is remarkable) include a painterly banquet scene and an unnerving black mass sequence led by three ambisexual witches. The lighting is ravishingly crepuscular. The mood-matching sound design includes period pop recordings (“Goodnight Children, Everywhere,” “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”), techno music (but only for the witches) and swoony, suspenseful Bernard Herrmann scores for Hitchcock movies.

References to Hitchcock — the McKittrick is a nod to “Vertigo” — abound. (A character named Mrs. Danvers, an allusion to the Hitchcock film “Rebecca,” was in an earlier and slightly less spectacular incarnation of “Sleep No More,” which I saw last year in Brookline, Mass.) That director was the ultimate master of making us feel complicit in film’s invasion of private lives and ugly deaths. And it seems to me that sense of guilty enjoyment, translated into theatrical terms, is a large part of what Punchdrunk is trying to elicit here.

It can make you feel kind of shabby, watching other audience members rifling through a suitcase that Lady Macduff has left on a bed or reading a letter on the desk in Duncan’s sitting room. (It’s a thank-you note from the socially correct Lady Macbeth.) That doesn’t mean that you won’t follow their leads once they’ve moved on. As an advertising slogan for a tabloid newspaper used to say, enquiring minds want to know.










Thursday, March 5, 2020




LINCOLN CENTER

David Koch theater
Shen Yun Dance

A trailer...

Another trailer...

How they train the dancers...


A Heavenly Gift

The culture of ancient China was divinely inspired. 
Shen Yun’s works reflect this rich spiritual heritage...
Shen Yun invites you to travel back to the magical world of ancient China. Experience a lost culture through the incredible art of classical Chinese dance, and see legends come to life. Shen Yun makes this possible by pushing the boundaries of the performing arts, with a unique blend of stunning costuming, high-tech backdrops, and an orchestra like no other. Be prepared for a theatrical experience that will take your breath away!

A Heritage Once Lost

The traditional Chinese culture Shen Yun presents cannot be seen anywhere else in the world—not even in China. There, the ruling communist regime has viewed China’s rich spiritual and artistic heritage as a threat to its ideology and for decades tried to erase it.
But in 2006, a group of Chinese artists came together in New York with a vision: to revive the best of China’s cultural heritage and share it with the world. They drew courage and inspiration from their practice of Falun Dafa—a spiritual discipline based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. The company’s repertoire includes important works shedding light on the plight of people like them in communist China today.
After a decade of performing around the world to sold-out audiences everywhere, Shen Yun has brought a great civilization back from the brink of extinction.


Shen Yun

Shen Yun Performing Arts
Logo-shenyun.png
Dance company and symphony orchestra
Founded2006; 14 years ago
Founderpractitioners of Falun Gong
Headquarters
Area served
Worldwide
DivisionsNew York Company, International Company, Touring Company, World Company
Websiteshenyun.com

Shen Yun Performing Arts is a New York-based performing-arts and entertainment company associated with the Falun Gong that tours the world,[1][2] producing dance performances and symphony concerts.[3] Their performances prominently feature classical Chinese dance, which is accompanied by a live orchestra composed of both Western and Chinese instruments.[4][5][6][7]

The group is composed of seven performing arts companies, with a total of approximately 480 performers.[8] For six months a year, Shen Yun Performing Arts tours to over 130 cities across Europe, North America, Oceania, and Asia.[9] Shen Yun's shows have been staged at prominent venues including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in Manhattan,[10] London’s Royal Festival Hall, Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center, and Paris' Palais des Congrès.[11]

The company promotes itself as reviving "5,000 years of Chinese culture", which it claims has been nearly destroyed by the Communist Party of China.[12][13] Shen Yun was founded in 2006 by Chinese expatriate adherents of Falun Gong, a new religious movement.[14][11] The company remains an extension of Falun Gong: Adherents pay for venue costs, promote the show, and sell tickets; after performance expenses, proceeds go toward Falun Gong. Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi describes the performance as a means of "saving" audiences.[2] Along with the Falun Gong, Shen Yun operates out of a 427-acre compound located in Deer Park, New York, and an office of the Falun Gong newspaper Epoch Times operates in Middletown nearby.[15]

The performances have received criticism for promoting sectarian doctrines and negative views toward evolutionatheism, and homosexuality, as well as being "filled with cult messages."[16][17][18]

    Name


    The company claims that its name "Shen Yun" translates as "the beauty of divine beings dancing".[19] The first word, 神 (shén), means "deity, spirit, supernatural", and the second word, 韻 (yùn), means "melodious tune, rhyme".[18]


    History


    In 2006, a group of expatriate Chinese Falun Gong practitioners living in North America founded Shen Yun in New York.[20] The claimed purpose of the company was to revive Chinese culture and traditions from the time before Communist rule.[citation needed]

    In 2007, the company conducted its first tour with 90 dancers, musicians, soloists, and production staff.[21] Early shows were titled "Chinese Spectacular",[14][11] "Holiday Wonders",[22] "Chinese New Year Splendor", and "Divine Performing Arts", but now the company performs exclusively under the name "Shen Yun". As of 2009, Shen Yun had developed three full companies and orchestras that tour the world simultaneously. By the end of the 2010 season, approximately one million people had seen the troupe perform.[9]


    Billing and promotion


    Shen Yun promotes itself as "a presentation of traditional Chinese culture as it once was: a study in grace, wisdom, and virtues distilled from five millennia of Chinese civilization". The company is described in promotions as reviving Chinese culture following a period of alleged "assault and destruction" under the Chinese Communist Party.[12][13] Shen Yun is heavily promoted in major cities with commercials, billboards, and brochures displayed in the streets and in businesses, as well as in television and radio profiles.[17]

    Shen Yun performances are often produced or sponsored by regional Falun Dafa associations, members of Falun Gong, which in China is considered to be a cult and is banned by the government.[20] Some audience members have objected to the show's promotion strategy, which does not note the religious- and political-themed content of the performance.[23][24]


    Content


    Each year, Shen Yun creates original 2 1/2-hour productions. Each consists of approximately 20 vignettes featuring classical Chinese dance, ethnic dance, solo musicians and operatic singing.[9][25] Bilingual masters of ceremonies introduce each performance in Mandarin and in local languages.[9][26]


    Dance


    Large-scale group dance is at the center of Shen Yun productions.[11] Each touring company consists of about 40 male and female dancers, who mainly perform classical Chinese dance, which makes extensive use of acrobatic and tumbling techniques, forms and postures.[27]

    Shen Yun’s repertoire draws on stories from Chinese history and legends, such as the legend of Mulan,[28] Journey to the West and Outlaws of the Marsh. It also depicts "the story of Falun Gong today".[29] During the 2010 production at least two of the 16 scenes depicted "persecution and murder of Falun Gong practitioners" in contemporary China, including the beating of a young mother to death, and the jailing of a Falun Gong protester. In addition to classical Han Chinese dance, Shen Yun also includes elements of YiMiaoTibetan and Mongolian dance.

    Shen Yun performs three core elements of classical Chinese dance: bearing (emotion, cultural and ethnic flavor), form (expressive movements and postures), and technical skill (physical techniques of jumping, flipping, and leaping).[14] Shen Yun choreographer Vina Lee has stated that some of the distinct Chinese bearing (yun) has been "lost in the process" since the cultural changes of the Communist revolution.[14]


    Music


    Shen Yun dances are accompanied by a Western classical orchestra that integrates several traditional Chinese instruments, including the pipasuonadiziguzheng, and a variety of Chinese percussion instruments.[9][30] There are solo performances featuring Chinese instruments such as the erhu.[14][25] Interspersed between dance sequences are operatic singers performing songs which sometimes invoke spiritual or religious themes, including references to the Falun Gong faith.[9][31] A performance in 2007, for instance, included a reference to the Chakravartin, a figure in Buddhism who turns the wheel of Dharma.[32]

    The music to Shen Yun was composed by Jing Xian and Junyi Tan. Three of Shen Yun's performers—flutist Ningfang Chen, erhuist Mei Xuan and tenor Guan Guimin—were recipients of the Chinese Ministry of Culture’s "National First Class Performer" awards. Prior to joining Shen Yun, Guan Guimin was well known in China for his work on soundtracks for more than 50 movies and television shows. Other notable performers include erhu soloist Xiaochun Qi.[33]


    Costume and backdrops



    Shen Yun dancer Seongho Cha performing in 2009

    Shen Yun’s dancers perform wearing intricate costumes, often accompanied by a variety of props.[14][9] Some costumes are intended to imitate the dress of various ethnicities, while others depict ancient Chinese court dancers, soldiers, or characters from classic stories.[14] Props include colorful handkerchiefs, drums,[14] fans, chopsticks, or silk scarves.[29][34]

    Each Shen Yun piece is set against a digitally projected backdrop, usually depicting landscapes such as Mongolian grasslands, imperial courts, ancient villages, temples, or mountains.[9][26][35] Some backdrops contain moving elements that integrate with the performance.[34]


    Tours


    Shen Yun's seven companies tour for six months each year, performing in over 130 cities in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Latin America.[9] Notable venues include the David H. Koch Theater at New York's Lincoln Center in Manhattan;[36] the London Coliseum in London, England; the Palais des congrès de Paris; and the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, D.C. By the conclusion of Shen Yun's 2010 performance, an estimated one million people had seen the performance worldwide.[9]

    Shen Yun does not perform in China. The Chinese government has attempted to cancel Shen Yun performances through political pressure via its foreign embassies and consulates.[37][38][39][40][41][42] Chinese diplomats have also sent letters to elected officials in the West exhorting them not to attend or otherwise support the performance, which they describe as "propaganda" intended to "smear China's image."[43][44] Members of the Communist Party's top political consultative body have also expressed concern that China's state-funded arts troupes have been less popular internationally than Shen Yun.[45] Shen Yun representatives say the Chinese government’s opposition to the show stems from its depictions of modern-day political oppression in China, and that it includes expressions of traditional Chinese cultural history that the Communist government has tried to suppress.[46]

    Shen Yun was scheduled to perform in Hong Kong in January 2010, but the performance was cancelled after the government of Hong Kong refused entry visas to Shen Yun's production crew.[47] The decision was overturned in March of the same year, but the company has yet to return.[48] Attempts to shut down the show have also been reported by theatres and local governments in various countries including Ecuador, Ireland, Germany and Sweden.[49]


    Reception


    The 2018 and 2019 performances included lyrics and digital displays disparaging atheism and belief in evolution as "deadly ideas" and "born of [sic] the Red Spectre",[17][18] and is a common complaint of attendees of the performance. Reviewers characterized these contents as an "anti-evolution", "religious sermon", and "cult propaganda".[16] Many viewers and reviewers complain about such elements a misrepresentation of the show's content in Shen Yun's advertising, in a way that "feels more like propaganda than straightforwardly presented cultural heritage."[50] Alix Martichoux from Houston Chronicle wrote "For many disgruntled Shen Yun attendees, it's not necessarily that the show itself is bad — though to be fair, some complain it is. Most of the negative reviews were people upset they were blindsided by the political content."[16] Walter Whittemore wrote on The Ledger that "We paid a premium for seats that would provide us an excellent view of Chinese tradition. Instead, we contributed unwittingly to a religious movement that denies evolution and science, claims the earth was inhabited by aliens, demonizes atheists and homosexuals, and condemns mixed marriages."[51] As of April 2019, disparagement of atheism and evolution was still present in the show.[16][17][18] Misrepresentation of content in advertising was also commonly complained by viewers.

    Falun Gong-affiliated political propaganda have also been noted as prominent elements. An outstanding case is described by Jia Tolentino from The New Yorker: "Chairman Mao appeared, and the sky turned black; the city in the digital backdrop was obliterated by an earthquake, then finished off by a Communist tsunami. A red hammer and sickle glowed in the center of the wave. [...] a huge, bearded face disappearing in the water, [...] a tsunami with the face of Karl Marx."[17] David Robertson, minister of St. Peter's Free Church in Dundee, Scotland, wrote that although he enjoyed the show, it is "filled with cult messages", writing: "Some of the messages were hardly subtle – not least when the colourful Falun Gong practitioners in the park were beaten up by the black clad villains with the Chinese Communist symbols on their back. Or when a massive (digital) wave with an ominous picture of Karl Marx threatened to overwhelm the city, until the light (in the form of Li Hongzhi, the Falun Gong leader), dispersed it and destroyed him! [...] As soon as it started – with everything inch perfect, and the fake fixed smiles on every dancer and the constant spiritual waffle about 'truthfulness, harmony, compassion and forbearance' I knew that we were in the presence of a religious cult. And so it turned out to be."[18]


    Symphony orchestra


    In October 2012, Shen Yun's symphony orchestra made its debut performance at Carnegie Hall in New York. The performance featured conductors Milen Nachev, Keng-Wei Kuo, and Antonia Joy Wilson, and the program included both classical works such as Beethoven's Egmont Overture and Antonio Vivaldi's Concerto in C Major, as well as original compositions that fuse Chinese and Western instruments.[52]
    In 2013 the symphony orchestra toured to seven American cities. In addition to Carnegie Hall, it performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.[53] and Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.[54]












    Wednesday, March 4, 2020




    THEATER

    Classic Stage Company
    Dracula - Kate Hamill

    "Both terrifying and riotous, Kate Hamill’s Dracula confronts the sexism in Bram Stoker’s original work and subjugates it as a smart and disquieting feminist revenge fantasy. Kate’s signature style and postmodern wit upends this familiar tale of Victorian vampires and drives a stake through the heart of toxic masculinity."








    https://www.newyorktheatreguide.com/reviews/review-of-dracula-at-classic-stage-company



    Review of Dracula at Classic Stage Company


    Over the past few years, playwright Kate Hamill has created something of a cottage industry, writing and acting in feminist stage adaptations of novels like Pride & Prejudice and Little Women. But, until now, she had denied herself the true pleasure of penning a revenge fantasy. Her Dracula, teeming with powerful women and playing in repertory at the Classic Stage Company’s Lynn F. Angelson Theater, alongside a much more by the book adaptation of Frankenstein by Tristan Bernays, is biting in every sense of the word, a powerful tale of the overpowering.

    Hamill’s script operates on several different planes. On one level, it is possible that the whole grisly vampire story is the delusional dream of a madwoman with daddy issues named Rensfield. Locked in an insane asylum, dressed in tatters and giggling like a loon, more often than not she is lurking in the shadows as the narrative unfolds. The meta beauty of this conceit is that Rensfield is played by the playwright. Hamill’s delight in being physically surrounded by the work that literally did come from her own mind is palpable and fuels her loose and joyful performance.

    The play is also an homage to 1930’s movie melodramas. Adam Honoré’s lighting design is all sidelights, lanterns and shadows and, as directed by Sarna Lapine, the heroines move with cinematic eloquence while Matthew Saldivar, as the hapless head of the asylum, Doctor Seward, gallops around, tossing off loaded bits of intentionally corny dialog like, “Such stimulation is bad for her condition.”

    But, most importantly, this Dracula is a corrective in overcoming the gothic tropes of damsels in distress and villains who wear evil on their sleeve. We know the dynamic has shifted early on as Count Dracula (a suave Matthew Amendt) looks up to a bright sky and proclaims, “What a beautiful sunny day.” Also, crosses have no effect on him, his mouth is fang-free and his slight Transylvanian accent smacks of wealthy European executive. He is an apparent Everyman who can, parasitically, control those who seek him out. The lessons, as the real world too clearly reflects, are that outward appearances of dangerous men are deceptive, and that “all men could turn dangerous if given too much power.”

    The women who do battle with the Count are all strong, smart and beautiful. Lucy (Jamie Ann Romero) draws parallels between succumbing to Dracula and succumbing to her potential fate as a housewife, ominously bemoaning that women cannot “stay mad young creatures – forever.” Mina (Kelley Curran) the pregnant wife of the once bitten, twice as insufferable Jonathan (Michael Crane) channels her inner vampire killer once she learns what’s at stake and Doctor Van Helsing (Jessica Frances Dukes, fierce, fast and furious) leads the way despite her outsider status. Adding atmosphere are the stricken wives of Dracula, Marilla (Lori Laing) and Laura Baranik’s Drusilla (a character name borrowed from TV’s "Buffy the Vampire Slayer").

    With the exception of the badass brown western-wear of Van Helsing, Robert Perdziola’s costume design is an inspired blizzard of whites streaked with pools of bloodthirsty red. The former speaks to both purity and madness, while the latter signals rebirth as much as it does vengeance.




    WHAT THE OTHER CRITICS SAID



    "With Dracula, Kate Hamill, an actress and go-to adapter of literary classics, doesn’t stint on story or symbolism. The script, which Hamill labels “A bit of a feminist revenge fantasy, really” is fun. Yet it is also fearless, and not in the Cosmo way. Hamill reads Dracula as a tale of toxic masculinity. Her scenes underline the theme with all the subtlety of a highway billboard. Can’t a stake be just a stake? At least sometimes?"
    Alexis Soloski for New York Times

    "Sarna Lapine, who also directed Hamill's Little Women, expertly navigates the script's wild tonal shifts as the production bounces between humor and horror, boosted by clever low-tech effects. (Strings of red beads unspool against Robert Perdziola's all-white costumes whenever blood needs to flow). All of the actors gamely sink their teeth into their parts, but this is the Van Helsing and Mina show, with Seward as their comic foil. Every time he shushes them or calls them hysterical or refuses to address Van Helsing as a doctor, their exasperation incites knowing laughs, especially from women in the audience. Dracula may not be subtle—the dialogue sometimes veers into dogma—but it is satisfying to see these ladies kick ass while rebelling against the subservient roles that so many stories want to cast them in."
    Raven Snook for Time Out New York

    "Hamill’s Dracula sees vampirism as a male club, not unlike the one in “The Stepford Wives,” where Count Dracula (Matthew Amendt) recruits other men to join him in his subjugation of women. Doctor Van Helsing, the vampire slayer (Jessica Frances Dukes), is now a feminist on a mission, and asylum inmate Renfield (Hamill herself) has also undergone a sex change. Sarna Lapine, best known for her revival of Sunday in the Park With George starring Jake Gyllenhaal, directs with a broad musical comedy flair. Everyone from Elton John to Frank Wildhorn has tried to set Stoker’s story to music and failed on Broadway. With the right songwriter, Hamill and Lapine could have a hit tuner on their hands. Until then, this Dracula has a weird pulse and rhythm all its own."
    Robert Hofler for The Wrap



















    Monday, March 2, 2020

    Sunday, March 1, 2020




    LINCOLN CENTER

    The Metropolitan Opera
    The National Audition finals

    Conductor - Bertrand de Billy
    Host - Lisette Oropesa*
    Guest Artist - Javier Camarena

    "Some of today’s greatest singers got their start in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, including Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Eric Owens, Stephanie Blythe, Hei-Kyung Hong, Lawrence Brownlee, Michael Fabiano, Lisette Oropesa, Christian Van Horn, Jamie Barton, Anthony Roth Costanzo, and Nadine Sierra."


    “O zitt’re nicht, mein lieber Sohn ... Zum Leiden bin ich auserkoren” from Die Zauberflöte (Mozart) Jana McIntyre, Soprano

    “Hai già vinta la causa ... Vedrò mentr’io sospiro” from Le Nozze di Figaro (Mozart)
    Xiaomeng Zhang, Baritone

    “I Want Magic” from A Streetcar Named Desire (Previn) Chasiti Lashay, Soprano

    “Give him this orchid” from The Rape of Lucretia (Britten) Gabrielle Beteag, Mezzo-Soprano

    “Sgombra è la sacra selva ... Deh! proteggimi, o Dio!” from Norma (Bellini)
    Lindsay Kate Brown, Mezzo-Soprano

    “Dich, teure Halle” from Tannhäuser (Wagner) Alexandria Shiner, Soprano

    “Carlos, écoute ... Ah, je meurs, l’âme joyeuse” from Don Carlos (Verdi)
    Blake Denson, Baritone

    “Depuis le jour” from Louise (G. Charpentier) Denis Vélez, Soprano

    “Ah! Mes amis ... Pour mon âme!” from La Fille du Régiment (Donizetti)
    Jonah Hoskins, Tenor

    Intermission

    “Mab, reine des mensonges” from Roméo et Juliette (Gounod) Xiaomeng Zhang, Baritone

    “A vos jeux, mes amis ... Partagez-vous mes fleurs” from Hamlet (Thomas)
    Jana McIntyre, Soprano

    “Io son l’umile ancella” from Adriana Lecouvreur (Cilea) Chasiti Lashay, Soprano

    “Ja, Gretelchen ... Hurr hopp hopp hopp” from Hänsel und Gretel (Humperdinck)
    Gabrielle Beteag, Mezzo-Soprano

    “To this we’ve come” from The Consul (Menotti) Alexandria Shiner, Soprano

    “Da, chas nastal! ... Prastitye vi” from The Maid of Orleans (Tchaikovsky) Lindsay Kate Brown, Mezzo-Soprano

    “Sì, ritrovarla io giuro” from La Cenerentola (Rossini) Jonah Hoskins, Tenor

    “Tu che di gel sei cinta” from Turandot (Puccini) Denis Vélez, Soprano

    “Oh, Lawd Jesus, hear my prayer” from The Emperor Jones (Gruenberg) Blake Denson, Baritone

    GUEST ARTIST

    “Ah! lève-toi, soleil!” from Roméo et Juliette (Gounod) “È la solita storia del pastore” from L’Arlesiana (Cilea)

    Javier Camarena, Tenor

    ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE GRAND FINALS WINNERS



    Five Singers Named 2020 Winners Of The Metropolitan Opera's National Council Auditions

    After a months-long series of competitions at the district, regional, and national levels, a panel of expert judges named five singers as the winners of the 2020 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Each winner receives a $20,000 cash prize-up from $15,000, the first increase since 1998-and the prestige and exposure that come with winning the competition that launched the careers of many of opera's biggest stars.

    The 2020 winners, the regions they represent in the competition, and their hometowns are:
    · Gabrielle Beteag, 25, mezzo-soprano (Southeast Region: Lilburn, GA)
    · Blake Denson, 24, baritone (Midwest Region: Paducah, KY)
    · Jonah Hoskins, 23, tenor (Rocky Mountain Region: Saratoga Springs, UT)
    · Alexandria Shiner, 29, soprano (Middle Atlantic Region: Waterford, MI)
    · Denis Vélez, 27, soprano (Gulf Coast Region: Puebla, Mexico)

    Earlier this afternoon, nine finalists performed on the Met stage in the final phase of the competition, hosted by soprano Lisette Oropesa, a 2005 National Council winner. Each finalist sang two arias with the Met Orchestra, led by Bertrand de Billy, followed by a guest performance by tenor Javier Camarenawhile the judges deliberated. The audience for the Grand Finals Concert, which was open to the public, included artistic directors of leading opera companies, artist managers, important teachers and coaches, music critics, and many other industry professionals with the potential to play an influential role in the career of a young singer. The concert was also streamed live on the Met's website and heard live on satellite radio.

    The remaining four finalists, who each receive a $10,000 cash prize (up from $7,500), are:
    · Lindsay Kate Brown, 28, mezzo-soprano (Upper Midwest Region: Waterloo, NY)
    · Chasiti Lashay, 27, soprano (Western Region: Houston, TX)
    · Jana McIntyre, 28, soprano (Midwest Region: Santa Barbara, CA)
    · Xiaomeng Zhang, 29, baritone (New England Region: Wenzhou, China)

    For the first time since 1998, the cash prizes increased to $20,000 for the winners and $10,000 for the remaining finalists to further their careers. Lisette Oropesa generously donated $25,000 this year to inspire a permanent increase in the award amounts, with many existing donors committing to join the effort. The National Council has named her its National Advisor in recognition of this gift. 

    This year's finalists were chosen from more than 1,000 singers who participated in auditions held in 40 districts throughout the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Mexico, and who then competed in the 12 regional finals. These auditions are sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera National Council and administered by National Council members and hundreds of volunteers from across the country.

    The Met National Council Auditions, now in their 66th year, have been crucial in introducing many of today's best-known stars, such as Renée Fleming, Susan GrahamFrederica von StadeDeborah VoigtThomas HampsonStephanie BlytheSondra RadvanovskyLawrence BrownleeEric OwensAngela MeadeLisette OropesaSusanna PhillipsMichael Fabiano, Latonia Moore, Anthony Roth CostanzoNadine SierraJamie Barton, and Ryan Speedo Green. The competition gained international attention with the release of the 2008 feature-length documentary The Audition, directed by award-winning filmmaker Susan Froemke.