INTERVIEW: Back to the B Minor Mass: The Bach Society of Minnesota’s Centerpiece Arts Music by Basil Considine - May 11, 2022May 11, 2022 The Bach Society of Minnesota's Artistic Director Matthias Maute conducts a performance of J.S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis in 2021. Rock musicians have a notoriously short average lifespan (43.6 years). The average non-profit performing arts organization's lifespan is even shorter. Most are lucky to
INTERVIEW: Amy Quanbeck and Being a Minnesotan in the Moulin Rouge Arts Music Theatre by Basil Considine - May 11, 2022May 11, 2022 Conor Ryan (as Christian) and Courtney Reed (as Satine) star in the North American Tour of Moulin Rouge! The Musical, which opens at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis next week. Photo by Matthew Murphy. On May 18, 2001, a film called Moulin Rouge opened at the North American box office. Directed and
FEATURE: Strumming a Richer Tune at DalekoArts in Once Arts Music Theatre by Basil Considine - May 7, 2022May 14, 2022 Singer-actor-dancer-instrumentalists Leslie Vincent (left) and Chris Paulson (right) star in DalekoArts' production of Once, now playing in New Prague, MN. Photo courtesy of DalekoArts. "Write what you know." It's one of the most common pieces of advice given to poets, novelists, songwriters, and other wielders of writing. To that, one might
PREVIEW: Black Violin’s Coming Back Arts Music by Basil Considine - May 3, 2022May 3, 2022 Black Violin will return to the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul, MN on Friday, June 17. In retrospect, "Impossible" was perhaps not the wisest name for Black Violin's 2022 tour. The celebrated musical duo of violist Wil B and violinist Kev Marcus regularly smashes through genre boundaries,
PREVIEW: Shostakovich, Britten, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra Arts Music by Basil Considine - April 30, 2022April 30, 2022 The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in 2015. Photo by Ash & James Photography. How long does it take to learn a cello concerto? If you were Mstislav Rostropovich, the Soviet cellist for whom Dmitri Shostakovich composed his Cello Concerto No. 1, the answer is "4 days, memorization included". Even at just
REVIEW: A Brilliant Savoy Soap Opera is Ruddigore (GSVLOC) Arts Dance Music Opera Theatre by Basil Considine - March 20, 2022April 1, 2022 Part of the cover plate for the original vocal score of Ruddigore, prior to the opera's renaming. Had the comic opera writing duo W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan lived a half-century later, they would have assuredly written for the emergent genre of the day: television soap operas. If they had lived
PREVIEW: From Vermont Hell to World Hit: Hadestown‘s Journey to Broadway (Orpheum Theatre/HTT) Arts Music Theatre by Basil Considine - March 10, 2022March 10, 2022 The North American touring cast of the musical Hadestown, which plays at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, MN from March 15-20, 2022. Photo by T Charles Erickson. It took 13 years for the musical Hadestown to go to hell on Broadway. If that's not poetic, the subject certainly is: a struggling musician weds
PREVIEW: Skylark’s Eugene Onegin and Pushkin’s Operatic Life Arts Music Opera by Basil Considine - February 12, 2022February 12, 2022 A sketch by Alexander Pushkin for Eugene Onegin, showing the dueling scene. On March 25, Skylark Opera Theatre opens its pandemic-delayed production of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. This vivid opera, adapting the Pushkin novel of the same name, explores the full force of Russian Romanticism in its story and score. It
INTERVIEW: Eva Price on Producing Oklahoma! in New York and on the Road Arts Music Theatre by Basil Considine - November 6, 2021November 6, 2021 The recent revival cast of Oklahoma! on Broadway. A national tour branching off from this production performs at the Orphuem Theatre in Minneapolis, MN from November 9-14. Photo by Little Fang Photo. On Tuesday, Oklahoma! comes to Minneapolis. It has been a long time since this adaptation of Lynn Riggs' play Green
REVIEW: Ineffable Charm in The Red Shoes (Open Eye Theatre) Arts Theatre by Basil Considine - October 27, 2021October 27, 2021 Kimberly Richardson stars in Open Eye Theatre's The Red Shoes, now playing through November 6 at Open Eye Figure Theatre in Minneapolis, MN. Photo by Mark Vancleave. The Red Shoes is an easy show to enjoy and a hard one to concisely describe. The show pivots on a dime between physical