Classical Music Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 25

BWW Reviews: FRIDAY MORNING WITH THE PHIL at Avery Fisher Hall
by Peter Danish - May 26, 2015

The New York Philharmonic's series of 11am Friday matinee concerts is one of the real hidden gems of the New York cultural experience. True, the programming for the series is a bit less adventurous than one might wish for, but it is nonetheless laden with masterpieces....

BWW Review: 'Dinner and a Show' Philly Pops 'LEGENDS OF ROCK' and Locust Rendezvous
by Pati Buehler - May 20, 2015

Philly Pops playing Queen, the Stones, The Who, KISS?! Are we in the right place? We sure are!...

BWW Reviews: NJ SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at NJ Pac
by adam cohen - May 19, 2015

Andre Watts is in love with the piano and the piano loves him. What other musician holds such a fascinating relationship with his instrument, offering a full bodied, playful, passionate, mesmerizing performance of Beethoven's and Grieg's Forth Piano Concertos. His playfulness almost recalls Chico Ma...

BWW Reviews: CINDERELLA Steals Hearts in Lyrical Production at Washington National Opera
by Jeffrey Walker - May 11, 2015

CINDERELLA wins more than bracelets in Washington National Opera's closing opera of the season. Featuring the auspicious debut of American mezzo soprano Isabel Leonard (2013 Richard Tucker Winner), Rossini's comic and lyrical romantic opera weaves an easy spell. CINDERELLA – “La Cenerentola” – is co...

BWW Reviews: Tan Dun Martial Arts Trilogy at SF Symphony
by Harmony Wheeler - April 28, 2015

San Francisco Symphony continues to provide innovative, new programming for its film series. Saturday night saw a particularly different kind of film score as orchestra members used their hands, feet and voice next to their usual instruments....

BWW Reviews: NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at NJPAC
by adam cohen - April 27, 2015

Cancel all weekend plans and get the Count Basie Theater or NJPAC for this concert. Amazing performances....

BWW Reviews: Without Gypsies or Mistaken Identities, Soprano Meade Wins Four-Sided Tug of War in ERNANI at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - April 02, 2015

Nine years before IL TROVATORE took the prize for Verdi's most outlandish story line--with gypsies, stolen babies and mistaken identities--there was ERNANI, with a different kind of complicated plot to make your head spin. The Met's current revival of its 1983 production of the opera stars a formida...

BWW Reviews: GOTTA DANCE at SF Symphony
by Harmony Wheeler - March 31, 2015

San Francisco announced its new season recently, including the continuation of its film series with another John Williams favorite, ET, the reprise of Vertigo, and two Christmas classics - one a musical - Nightmare Before Christmas and It's A Wonderful Life. But Saturday night saw something more fam...

BWW Reviews: Well-Strung Thrills with POPSSICAL Encore at 54 Below
by David Clarke - March 30, 2015

New York City based string quartet Well-Strung returned to 54 Below on Friday, March 27, 2015. Performing to a sold-out house, the always charming and handsome performers delighted audiences with an encore engagement of their entertaining hit show POPssical. While reprising much of what they perform...

BWW Reviews: KUBIAN, RACHMANINOFF & TCHAIKOVSKY NJSO at BergenPAC
by adam cohen - March 23, 2015

Dramatic classical music....

BWW Reviews: NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at NJPAC
by adam cohen - March 17, 2015

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BWW Reviews: Soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci Is Only HUMAINE in Poulenc Opera at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall
by Richard Sasanow - March 10, 2015

It's an old story: Woman meets man. Woman loses man…and loses him over and over again on a party-line. Luckily, the woman is Italian soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci and the composer of LA VOIX HUMAINE is Francis Poulenc. Together, they made for a fascinating performance at Lincoln Center's Alice Tul...

BWW Reviews: ADELAIDE FESTIVAL 2015: GAVIN BRYARS ENSEMBLE WITH GUESTS Is A Complex Programme in Three Acts
by Barry Lenny - March 05, 2015

The arrangements were as diverse as the songs, ranging from spine-tingling bowed harmonics on bass, 'cello and violas, to fluid and fluent electric guitar solo...

BWW Reviews: Shaham Surmounts the Challenge of Unaccompanied Bach
by Erica Miner - March 02, 2015

ivolinist Gil Shaham pushed the envelope by programming three of these works in one evening...

BWW Reviews: That Voice, Voluminous and Voluptuous, Marks Mezzo Jamie Barton Debut at Zankel Hall
by Richard Sasanow - February 23, 2015

It's the wrong time of year to expect a hurricane in New York, but that didn't stop mezzo Jamie Barton from taking Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall by storm this week. With her warmth, sly sense of playfulness and a voice that just won't quit, Barton held the audience captive....

BWW Reviews: HGO's MAGIC FLUTE Hits Every Note
by Guest Blogger: Bryan-Keyth Wilson - February 17, 2015

I am taken back to the first Opera I saw as a kid and the pomp and circumstance with wearing a tux and walking to the lavish theatre; this was when I fell in love with classical music. Often times we hear opera and other classical art forms are inaccessible to the people, but Houston Grand Opera's E...

BWW Reviews: NYCB Dancers Prove Their Worth in ALL BACH
by Aaron Fallon - February 16, 2015

What determines an artistic institution's longevity? How does such an institution thrive after the social, political, and economic forces that engendered it have disappeared? Museums, orchestras, theater and dance companies face these questions as they struggle to succeed in the cultural Darwinism t...

BWW Reviews: With Mattei as the Lead and Gilbert at the Helm, GIOVANNI Settles the Score at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - February 09, 2015

I consider Mozart's DON GIOVANNI at the top of my list of favorite operas--the music starts to go through my head without much encouragement and gets stuck there. Yet, it's also one of the most problematic in performance, calling for a large group of A-list singers to do justice to the ripe and some...

BWW Reviews: The DOCTOR WHO SYMPHONIC SPECTACULAR Is A Feast For The Senses Delighting Fans Of All Ages
by Jade Kops - February 07, 2015

The DOCTOR WHO SYMPHONIC SPECTACULAR is just that, Spectacular. This new exploration of the music that has coloured the suspense and mystery of the popular TV drama is the latest live entertainment offering from the Doctor Who creators....

BWW Reviews: JASON ALEXANDER with Baltimore Symphony - What a Gifted Performer
by Charles Shubow - February 02, 2015

Conductor Michael Krajewski subs for BSO Pops Conductor Jack Everly...

BWW Reviews: NY Philharmonic Flexes Its Operatic Muscles with Verdi REQUIEM
by Richard Sasanow - January 28, 2015

With all its money problems, why hasn't the Met thought about doing some lesser known works in concert? Or, for that matter, marshalled some of its glamorous resources to put on the Verdi REQUIEM? For the time being, we have to be grateful for the New York Philharmonic and its Music Director Alan Gi...

BWW Reviews: DOCTOR WHO SYMPHONIC SPECTACULAR Was Almost as Good as a Ride in the TARDIS
by Barry Lenny - January 27, 2015

This was an evening that delighted every Whovian in the vast audience....

BWW Reviews: PENNY Finds Voice at Washington National Opera Premiere
by Jeffrey Walker - January 27, 2015

The idea of finding your voice is a two way street in the world premiere one-hour opera PENNY. Composer Douglas Pew and librettist Dara Weinberg have created a succinct, lyrical piece in which their title character discovers her talent for music and is able to communicate and take charge of her life...

BWW Reviews: CIRQUE DE LA SYMPHONIE Brings Magic to Columbus Stage
by Amanda Etchison - January 26, 2015

The Ohio Theatre's gilded halls were transformed into a dazzling display of majesty and mystery in Columbus Symphony's performance of 'Cirque de la Symphonie' on Saturday, Jan. 24....

BWW Reviews: Hallelujah. The Collegiate Chorale Brings MESSIAH (Not) to Carnegie Hall
by Richard Sasanow - December 20, 2014

A funny thing happened on the way to Handel's MESSIAH: That would be Monty Python's LIFE OF BRIAN, transformed from the film by Eric Idle (the jokes) and John Du Prez (the music) into NOT THE MESSIAH (HE'S A VERY NAUGHTY BOY). This comic oratorio resulted in a very jolly evening, which The Collegiat...