The Brooklyn Academy of Music presents Mark Morris: Two Operas, March 15 through 19. On the last day of July, 2013, I saw and heard an unforgettable performance in Tanglewood’s Seiji Ozawa Hall. Mark Morris had directed Benjamin Britten’s Curlew River for a cast of Tanglewood Fellows and paired it with his 1989 visualization of Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas, performed by the Mark … [Read more...]
From London to New Jersey
The Richard Alston Dance Company at Montclair State University's Peak Performances, February 2 through 5. What seems different? I’m sitting in the Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University, waiting for the Richard Alston Dance Company to begin dancing. Having for some years attended events presented at Montclair State’s Peak Performances series, I’m now part of a full house of … [Read more...]
A Playwright and a Composer Meet in a Forest
Christopher Caines directs and choreographs Purcell's Fairy Queen for the Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble. If I had looked carefully at the program for The Fairy Queen before the Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble’s ambitious conflation of Henry Purcell’s opera and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream had begun, I might have been tempted to make a run for it. Here, for example, are the roles that actor … [Read more...]
Two Brits and Mark
The Mark Morris Dance Group and Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Festival performs operas by Benjamin Britten and Henry Purcell. Mark Morris has journeyed into music in other ways beside making dances to compositions he loves. He has conducted orchestras, directed and choreographed operas. Two works presented in Tanglewood’s airy, wooden Seiji Ozawa Hall reveal his sensitivity to music in … [Read more...]