Count Hermann Carl von Keyserlink, so the story goes, had trouble sleeping at night in 18th-century Leipzig. So the amiable Johann Sebastian Bach composed thirty variations for harpsichord that his precocious and gifted pupil, 14-year-old Johann Gottheim Goldberg, might play at night to relax the insomniac. It is hard to imagine Bach’s Goldberg Variations helping anyone to get some shut-eye; … [Read more...]
Are You Certain?
John Heginbotham and Maira Kalman premiere a collaboration at Jacob's Pillow. Do I see an acknowledgement or a warning? My destiny maybe? The seats in Jacob’s Pillow’s Doris Duke Studio Theater haven’t paid much attention to me until now, when I’m about to sit in one to watch the world premiere of The Principles of Uncertainty by choreographer-director John Heginbotham and … [Read more...]
Dancers and Puppets Rebirth the World
Fantasque by John Heginbotham and Amy Trompetter opens Bard Summerscape 2016. The 2016 season of Bard Summerscape (July 1 to August 14) is devoted to the opera composer Giacomo Puccini. Hosted by the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, the concerts, lectures, panels, films and performances that comprise “Puccini and His World” pop up at various sites on the … [Read more...]
Come Spring!
The Mark Morris Dance Group performs at BAM. Was it George Balanchine who said he wanted us to see the music and hear the dancing when we were watching his ballets? Maybe he said only the first part of that. Mark Morris, I think, hopes for something similar when we see his choreography—not meaning that we should hear feet hit the floor, but that the dancers carry the music in their bodies, … [Read more...]