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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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S.E. Barcus 