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A Very, Very, Very Fine House
People cannot sing songs or write poetry on the subject of home without it reverting to an ode to the every-day, to those simple, “meaningless,” and “ordinary” things … that are actually just so goddamn important to us. That are, it turns out, everything.
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Yuja Wang don’t give a shit.
LA Philharmonic brings back the piano prima donna. By S.E. Barcus Perhaps you do not know who “Yuja Wang” is…? Well, judging by her commanding performance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall February 18, 2020, in Los Angeles, along with her confident demeanor and skyrocketing fame over the past decade … I really do not…
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Weirdo. Dynasty Handbag — Divine Meets Karen Finley.
Dynasty Handbag (the Doppelgoofy of performance artist Jibz Cameron), is one exaggeratedly foppish gal. She is as schmutzy-glamorous (and lackadaisical with her gowns and lipstick) as Divine, yet suddenly as combative and comedically intense as Karen Finley. Talk about a wonderful blend!
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My Interview with Philip Glass, and His, “New-World-Fusion-Chamber-Music-Quartet-Extravaganza!”
“CP: How insulting is it to you when you hear “New Age” or “trance music”? PG: “Oh, I don’t care, really. I’ve been called all sorts of things. Those things come and go.”
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Mother Russia, No America
Sooo…. The “great transformation” going on in the play — about Russia, and a society being slowly turned into a murderous oligarchic libertarian capitalist one –- should obviously remind us all, right NOW, of … Covid?!
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John Adams and the Noir of January 6
Composer John Adams conducts the Seattle Symphony on the anniversary of the insurrection, January 6, 2022.
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Vive Lapage! Vive Le FLIP! Vive Le Cirque!
OK, “contemporary circus” – you had my curiosity, but now … you have my attention. … Combine the cirque nouveau of FLIP with the theater of Ex Machina, and you now have a dovetailing of creative energy that blends into one of the most humorous and entertaining contemporary circus experiences I’ve ever had, with SLAM!,…
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Tan Dun’s Soundscape Monument for Mothers, Daughters, and Sisters
Tan Dun has called his Nu Shu a “soundscape monument for mothers, daughters, and sisters.” “Monument” is a good word choice. Despite all of the amazingly ambitious and wonderful music this composer has already made throughout his life, I can’t imagine anything will top this piece, and all of the real, human mythology surrounding it.
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Jinkxies! — “Get Ready Bitches ‘Cause It’s Monsoon Season!”
“Get Ready ‘Cause It’s Monsoon Season!” is what Jinkx proclaimed as she was crowned the winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race in Season 5. Well, it was a slowly increasing pitter-patter (delayed, in part, by the plague), but Jinkx is now starting to truly feel more like a downpour. I think Monsoon Season is really here…
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Second City Dreamin’
You literally have to see to believe. You have to see Stafford twist apart like a creature from The Thing, when he fears Rihanna might never make music again (was this insanity a little homage to Swarm?). Or McFadden, dancing around as the wooden boy, Pinocchio, finding some cocaine and dry-humping fratboys…. Or Mills’ “sashaying…
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Seattle Symphony’s Pastiche of Germans … And a Scot
The imaginative and variegated quality of tonight’s program is truly appreciated. Three completely different styles, a little something for everyone, tied together with a theme. Tonight, the theme was Germans, and heroes. While the contemporary German composer, Widmann, wrote his “Con brio” in honor of his hero, Beethoven, Ludwig himself wrote the 5th piano concerto…
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We Are the World. We are the Cello. (Jan Vogler’s Cello….)
Bao was rightfully back to her baton — this piece got so crazy, and oftentimes so fast, it would have been impossible to keep these bunch of drunks in sync without a stick with which to beat them!
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Passengers, on Earth
Soon, after the wonderful spinning rope work by Eduardo de Azevedo Grillo, I briefly thought the story might revolve around two lone souls who were becoming lovers, our trapeze artist and our rope artist. But no, it is another vignette, another brief chance moment in ‘time’ — with no ‘main character,’ no real ‘destination’, no…
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Chapela and Kuusisto Set Antiphaser to Killing It
Mexico City composer Enrico Chapela had a world premiere tonight in Seattle of his new electric violin concerto, Antiphaser. What is that, you ask? Some sort of guitar pedal, (or anti-pedal)? Or was CCM Chapela going to explore the phasing techniques of Steve Reich? No!
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Macbeth and Macbeth and Macbeth: Three Weird Macbeths
More power to Daniel Craig for trying to get our butts in the seats for a Shakespeare play! He doesn’t HAVE to do this. You get the feeling he WANTS to do this. I take it back – give the tickets out to the unruly high school kids. It’s the whole point. Go stars, go! …
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Jan Lisiecki, A Tale of Two Washingtons
Chopin Piano Concerto in DC; Chopin Nocturnes and Études in Seattle March 17, 2022 By S.E. Barcus Over the past two months, I had the chance to check out pianist Jan Lisiecki, a relatively young man (about to turn 27) who is marketed as pretty hot stuff. He is Polish-Canadian, and his claim to fame…
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Ghosts — The Play that Returned
Thus, on the topic of religion oppressing women, we need a MUCH more impassioned art, that speaks to all women, not just the Gen X and Boomer Rep audiences. An art that really captures today, the here-and-now. While I love the idea of this play, this production just doesn’t do that for me. It feels…
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Beethoven and the Russian Invasion of February 24
Night at the an der Vilar Review of Colorado Symphony performing Beethoven’s 5th and 6th Symphonies Beaver Creek, CO By S.E. Barcus (and Vladimir Putin) February 24, 2022 The Colorado Symphony (CS) perform Beethoven’s 6th and 5th Symphonies for the (mostly) wealthy skiers of Beaver Creek and Vail, February 24-27, 2022, at the Vilar Performing…
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Los Angeles Philharmonic’s “Pelléas and Mélisande” is a French-styled “Total Work of Art”
The “hero’s welcome” for composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen at the opening night performance of the L.A. Philharmonic’s production of Debussy’s “Pelléas and Mélisande” hit with a refreshing coolness of modesty; with an apropos absence of fanfare perfectly suited to the production at hand. Salonen so casually enters while other philharmonic members are still trickling in that…
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Age and Sex Trends of Contemporary Classical Music Composers, Using Current Popularity Data
This study determined which contemporary classical music (CCM) composers were more popular amongst avid consumers of CCM, when categorized as either: alive or dead; young or old; and female or male.
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The Good, Hard Work of “Hail, Caesar!”
The Coen Brothers’ new movie, Hail, Caesar!, shows you the man behind the curtain at a Hollywood studio. Set during the 1950’s, the story involves Josh Brolin’s “Everyman”, Eddie Mannix, which is also a fortuitous alliteration. The first shot of the film shows Eddie deep in remorse, alone in a Confessional. He has failed to…
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Tales from the Plague: Surge One, Nursing Heroes.
By S.E. Barcus That first patient we got in our country? We did everything right. We were so proud. Yet with hindsight, we along with everyone else squandered the next month that we could have spent preparing. If only we had better leadership. (Trump: “The 15 within a couple of days is going to…
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Seattle 2025 Fall Dramatic Arts Preview
While we cannot right the Earth’s tilt, there are some consolation prizes for contending with the dark. With most everyone hunkering down, the dramatic arts kick into high gear again, and really thrive, starting in the fall. … In the land of the Big Dumper, let’s get our Big Bottoms off the couch and into…
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Taste the Cleve, America
Wonderful! A World Series between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Cubs is a Series between two North Coast teams that have each suffered for such a long time. Whoever wins, it will make many of us sports fans – who tend to root for underdogs – happy. (Those of you who “like a winner”…
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The Have Nots! Have Lots, Piccolo Spoleto Review
…Another scene had Rucker and Finch playing a premise completely devised by the audience — acting out “that famous Australian custom of flossing after sex.” This is when the night becomes great. Audience members have the goofiest things to say, and as Tavares says, “we try not to turn anything down.” So what you get…
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Music in Time, Spoleto Review 2001
Conductor John Kennedy and Pianist Sarah Cahill, and others, team up for an amazing Spoleto performance of contemporary classical music. (Photo credit — hinnk — of Ms. Cahill performing at Berkeley Art Museum.)
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Music in Time, Spoleto’s Contemporary Classical Music Showcase, a Preview
2001 Archives My interview with John Kennedy. Every Spoleto, I was most reliably excited by Kennedy’s curated contemporary classical music series. For this year, 2001, we got to hear music by Ruth Crawford Seeger, in honor of her centennial, including Nine Preludes for Piano, Music for Small Orchestra, and Three Songs, as well as some…
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Laurie Anderson’s Moby Dick, Spoleto Festival Review 1999
“Up front, like Ahab guiltily admits in the beginning of Laurie Anderson’s Songs and Stories from Moby Dick, “I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never read the book! It’s too big!” … Unfortunately, the show’s not much more than that: a “reading’s cool” PSA for technophiles.” From the S.E. Barcus Charleston City Paper archives, 1999.
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Kurt Weill’s Die Burgschaft, Spoleto Festival Review
“Die Burgschaft is the story of Mattes and Orth, two men in the mythical land of Urb who witness the gradual and tragic degradation of their trust in one another because of the dividing and corrupting influence of money and power.” From the S.E. Barcus Charleston City Paper archives, 1999.
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Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Spoleto Review 2001
Many in the audience seemed truly touched by this “jewel of Western opera repertoire,” as Director Chen Shi-Zheng has called it.
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Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, Spoleto Review 2001
“For all the kitsch and Brecht, what I would’ve loved to see was a critique of this dopey and insulting take on women….”
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Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Piccolo Spoleto Festival Review
Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” was made for “firsts”, it seems. The concert at the Angel Oak last weekend marked the first time the 1,400-year-old tree has been used as a venue by Piccolo Spoleto, and the first time the Charleston Ballet Theater has performed their magnum opus to live music.” From the S.E. Barcus Charleston…
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