You can celebrate Christmas this weekend not with Bach or Handel, but with a generation or two of German composers who preceded them: Heinrich Schutz, Johann Schein, and Dieterich Buxtehude (born in Denmark but a longtime resident of Lubeck, Germany). Their music may be heard less often than Bach’s or Handel’s, but it offers multiple […]
David Raymond
Posted inArts & Entertainment
THEATER | “Pura’s Beauty”
Latino Theatre Productions’ newest show, “Pura’s Beauty,” is a counterpart to the group’s “Macho’s Place,” presented last year. That was a one-act, one-hour play set in a barbershop; this is a one-act, one-hour play set in a locally-owned beauty salon. It also sounds a bit like a Latin version of “Steel Magnolias.” A group of women gather at Pura’s not only to get […]
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THEATER | “The Drowning Girls”
In 1915 England, George Joseph Smith was convicted of the murders, by drowning, of his three wives. In 2008 Canada, the three wives told their stories in the premiere of the play “The Drowning Girls.” They tell of their wooing, their wedding, their insuring, and their drowning, all in the bathtub where they met their ends. […]
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CLASSICAL | “Nowell, Sing We Now”
If you’re already a bit tired of constant Christmas carols, well, I can’t blame you. But this weekend Madrigalia offers a charming alternative with “Nowell, Sing We Now,” a concert of holiday vocal chamber music. The program includes music by Stephen Paulus, John Rutter, and Madrigalia’s artistic director Cary Ratcliff, with the group’s elegant ensemble sound complemented by the […]
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CLASSICAL | “Goldbergs”
In his “Goldberg Variations,” Johann Sebastian Bach took a rather nondescript dance tune and spun from it (or to be precise, its bass line) 30 variations “for the refreshment of music lovers.” The variations range across a world of moods and emotions, and there are few keyboard works more extensive or — when the original tune returns at the end — more […]
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Theater Review: “West Side Story” at Kodak Center
"West Side Story" may be nearly 60 years old, but it’s remarkably spry. The 1957 musical blended drama, music, and especially dance as no musical before it had quite done, and few musicals after it have completed the equation quite as elegantly. It’s an ambitious choice for a joint production by RAPA and The Rochester […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Theater Review: “West Side Story” at Kodak Center
"West Side Story" may be nearly 60 years old, but it’s remarkably spry. The 1957 musical blended drama, music, and especially dance as no musical before it had quite done, and few musicals after it have completed the equation quite as elegantly. It’s an ambitious choice for a joint production by RAPA and The Rochester […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
THEATER | “A Christmas Carol”
If anything in literature deserves to be called a durable property, it’s “A Christmas Carol.” Charles Dickens’s story of Ebenezer Scrooge and his moral transformation at the hands of three Christmas Ghosts was published in 1843 and has never been out of print. It has been a constant holiday presence in movies, radio, recordings … […]
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“King Lear”
Which of Shakespeare’s plays is his greatest? It’s a fatuous question, of course, but if I had to choose, I think “King Lear” would be a front-runner. That may be a reflection of growing older: this play has profound and unsettling things to say about aging, physical and mental decline, selfishness, abuse of power, and […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
MUSIC: A sacred oratorio
When it comes to the classical Christmas music sweepstakes, Handel’s oratorio “Messiah” is the world — or at least the English-speaking world — heavyweight champ. Few, if any, works of classical music have been so continually popular as “Messiah,” and none is more closely and affectionately associated with Christmas. For many people, the Christmas season […]
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THEATER | “The Cripple of Inishmaan”
In 1934, a Hollywood film crew arrived on the western coast of Ireland to make a documentary about life on the Aran Islands — an isolated life that at least one inhabitant, “Cripple” Billy Claven, considers barren, poverty-stricken, and boring. Billy dreams of getting a part in the documentary as his ticket out. That’s the […]
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Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra
Two prizewinners joined forces last week as guest artists with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Conductor José Luis Gomez won the Georg Solti competition in 2010; pianist Vadym Kholodenko won the gold medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2013. They made an impressive team in a front-loaded program that put the heaviest, or […]
