Month: October 2013

STORIES I WANT TO TELL YOU IN PERSON by Lally Katz in Joe’s Pub at the Public Theatre, New York. Crazy isn’t it? Life? Here I am in New York and I discover that Lally Katz is going to give a one night performance of her one person monologue (comic stand-up routine(?)) at Joe’s Pub, which is a cabaret space in the Public Theatre building way down town, at 9.30pm, on Sunday night. She follows, into the space, the monologist, Mike Daisey (he, of the notorious, THE AGONY AND ECSTASY OF STEVE JOBS monologue – Sydney Opera House Concert Hall),…

Photo by Sara Krulwich, The New York Times New York Theatre Workshop present ONCE, Book Enda Walsh. Music and Lyrics by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, Broadway, New York. ONCE, the musical, is an adaptation of a low budget, small Independent film from Ireland, directed by John Carney in 2007. Both, the film and the musical play, tell the story of a young Irish busker with a broken heart, called “Guy” who meets a young married Czech refugee called “Girl” (yes, really) and find that they can make music together. The twist is that…

Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) present BAM 2013 New Wave Festival the New York City Opera production of ANNA NICOLE, composed by Mark-Anthony Turnage with a libretto by Richard Thomas, in the Howard Gilman Opera House. The above video clip is from the original production at the Royal Opera House (ROH), Covent Garden. The photograph, below, is from the BAM production. In Feburary, 2011, while commenting on the stage musical, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, I mentioned that the Royal Opera House in London had commissioned an opera based on the life of Anna Nicole Smith. I ruminated that DOCTOR ZHIVAGO seemed to…

Photograph by Bob-Seary New Theatre presents HAY FEVER by Noel Coward at the New Theatre, Newtown. Noel Coward’s HAY FEVER is given a perky and, mostly, stylish production at the New Theatre. Some regard Mr Coward’s plays as, relatively, frivolous pieces of fluff, and, certainly, Mr Coward himself, declared his distaste for “plays with a message”. Mr Coward’s prolific output needs not much introduction, and beside his play texts, has left an extensive musical repertoire, and some curious film projects that still hold some deal of interest (IN WHICH WE SERVE). Of his plays from the pre-World War Two era,…

The Metropolitan Opera presents Dimitri Shostakovitch, THE NOSE at the Lincoln Centre. How could one not take notice of these names, all on the same “bill’ and not want to see what they have all concocted: The Metropolitan Opera, Dimitri Shostakovitch, William Kentridge, Valery Gergiev, Nikolay Gogol and Yevgeny Zamyatin? Plus, for us Australians: Alexander Lewis (Who? – the young Australian tenor. Son of Michael Lewis, I think). THE NOSE is a co-production of the Metropolitan Opera, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and the Opera National de Lyon. It was first presented at the Metropolitan Opera, in 2010, in this wonderful staging…

The New York Philharmonic at the Avery Fisher Hall at the Lincoln Centre, New York, present RAVEL, BERNSTEIN and TCHAIKOVSKY. I attended an 11 am Friday morning concert. It was the second performance of the first program of the season, conducted by Alan Gilbert, the Music Director of the New York Philharmonic. The program began with a short work by Maurice Ravel: Alborada del gracioso (Dawn Song of the Jester). Written originally as a piano solo in 1904-05 as part of a five movement piano suite called MIROIRS. The Alborada del gracioso was the fourth movement and Sergei Diaghilev utilised…