Friday, May 26, 2017
Golden Cockerel (Coq d’Or) is a musical fantasy that was popular in the first half of the twentieth century but rarely seen since. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov composed it in 1907 with splashy …
SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 10:49AMTuesday, May 23, 2017
Leo Fall’s music is not likely to return to Broadway. It did, however, provide pleasant vocal opportunities for gifted young singers of the Concert Operetta Theater in Philadelphia this we…
SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 10:09AMSunday, May 21, 2017
Although not frequently performed, the Symphony No. 3 is Gustav Mahler’s most encompassing work, the piece which best exemplifies his life and career. Yannick Nézet-Séguin led a ma…
SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 12:27PMSunday, May 7, 2017
Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1 was the major undertaking at The Philadelphia Orchestra’s concerts of May 3, 5 and 6, 2017. Yannick Nézet-Séguin led the piece as a prelude to a year…
SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 03:38PMSaturday, April 29, 2017
During his lifetime, Sergei Rachmaninoff was more famous as a pianist than as a composer. Logically, therefore, The Philadelphia Orchestra’s current Rachmaninoff Festival is concentrating …
SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 12:49PMSunday, April 9, 2017
Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s latest program with The Philadelphia Orchestra was an intelligently thought-out adventure. The central work was Alternative Energy by Mason Bates, in its East Coas…
SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 01:41PMTuesday, March 28, 2017
Mozart’s Idomeneo is a landmark opera. It is undeniably a great achievement by a 25-year-old composer in the early stage of his career. Unlike the later Mozart operas, Idomeneo was written…
SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 12:00PMSunday, March 19, 2017
Ben Dibble might be as fine a cabaret performer as anyone in that field. He is definitely the best local male cabaret performer in a field long dominated by women. He demonstrated that with …
SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 11:50PMThursday, March 16, 2017
Concert Operetta Theater was founded in 2008 to revive and preserve the type of musical theater that’s more lighthearted and accessible than opera, but a bit grander than Broadway. These t…
SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 03:54PMTuesday, March 14, 2017
Contrast was stark in the concert which Michael Tilson Thomas led with The Philadelphia Orchestra. The first half displayed two radically dissonant pieces from the 1930s — Ruth Crawford Se…
SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 09:15PMTuesday, February 28, 2017
The Philadelphia Orchestra set of concerts during the last weekend of February was one of the most imaginatively conceived in recent memory. The program consisted of selections from Brahms�…
SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 06:27PMTuesday, February 21, 2017
During the 44 years when Eugene Ormandy was music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra (1936 to 1980), he led almost every concert. There was scant need for guest conductors. Now the symph…
SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 04:43PMFriday, January 13, 2017
An attack on Russian governmental bureaucracy is disguised EgoPo Classic Theater's surreal new adaptation of Gogol’s 'The Nose.' Steve Cohen reviews.
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 12:26PMSunday, December 11, 2016
Art Garfunkel used to sing, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?” This month, his Keswick Theatre audience asked a similar question. Steve Cohen reviews.
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 10:45PMTuesday, October 4, 2016
After going missing in action from major stages for decades, 'South Pacific' is back, heroically. Steve Cohen reviews.
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 07:08PMTuesday, August 30, 2016
Lisa D'Amour's 'Detroit,' a drama about life in the suburbs, is presented at a private home in the suburbs.
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 08:16PMThursday, June 23, 2016
'If/Then' was written for and based on the talents of Idina Menzel. To Steve Cohen's surprise, the show has appeal even without her.
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 04:17PMMonday, June 20, 2016
Presenting a revival of the music comedy 'Jamaica' as just a colorful travelogue is missing an opportunity, but it sure looks good.
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 05:56AMSunday, May 29, 2016
A melodramatic story is the starting point, but what elevates this production is the grand, almost-operatic vocal score and its classy cast.
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 08:47PMMonday, May 23, 2016
You could say that Becky Mode's 'Fully Committed' skewers the underside of the restaurant business, or that it’s a delicious slice of ham, or that it’s an amuse bouche. Primarily, it’s…
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 12:24PMTuesday, May 17, 2016
Arrigo Boito was the musician and playwright famed for turning Shakespeare plays into operas, such as Otello and Falstaff, where he collaborated with Verdi. Now another of his Shakespeare ad…
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 02:03PMMonday, May 9, 2016
Opera Philadelphia's production of 'The Elixir of Love' is funny and beautifully sung. What more do you want? Well, how about faithfulness to the composer’s intentions?
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 05:39PMObjectivity goes out the window in John LaChiusa's fascinating musical exploration of opposing beliefs. The music is complex and well worth our attention.
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 06:12AMFriday, April 29, 2016
Let’s consider the work of the eclectic Broadway composer and lyricist who chooses unusual subjects, and sets them to music that’s intricate and intellectual, yet catchy. Surprise: I’m…
SOURCE: theculturalcritic.com at 06:46PMAging is tough, but it beats the alternative. So goes the old joke. Jennifer Childs’s latest play and Ellensue Gross’s paintings provide fresher responses.
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 11:30AMMonday, April 25, 2016
Puccini’s neglected Il Tabarro usually gets no respect. But it shines in an innovative new production by the Academy of Vocal Arts.
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 04:49PMSunday, April 24, 2016
When Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball in 1947, he confronted mindless bigotry, especially in Philadelphia. But some white Philadelphian rejoiced, as I can personally attest.
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 03:33PMMonday, May 25, 2015
Ghost-Writer concerns the mysterious process of literary creation. That’s quite a monumental task, but Michael Hollinger handles it so well that the drama flows with energy and wit.
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 05:58PMThe Wilma Theater’s new Macbeth is concerned more with the struggle of an oppressed people fighting to overthrow tyranny than it is with the title character and his wife. Shakespeare w…
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 05:58PMLantern Theater’s production of Uncle Vanya is unusually intimate, shining more focus than usual on the unheralded characters in Chekhov’s tragicomedy of dissolute gentry. The ca…
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 05:58PMMonday, February 11, 2013
David Schulner’s An Infinite Ache speeds us through the lives of a man and woman from their first date to their old age in 90 minutes.
SOURCE: Broad Street Review at 05:50AM 
