NEWS: Chameleon Theatre Circle Creeps Towards Twin Cities Arts Dance Music Theatre by Basil Considine - May 5, 2017July 11, 2017 Julia Ennen as Daisy and Anna Larranaga as Violet in The Chameleon Theatre Circle's 2017 production of Side Show, which opened to packed houses at the Ames Center for the Performing Arts shortly after a future booking controversy became public. Photo by Daniel K. McDermott for Sinséar Video + Photography. The Chameleon Theatre Circle
INTERVIEW: American Prize Winner Geneviève Leclair on Conducting Arts Dance Music by Basil Considine - April 30, 2017May 1, 2017 Conductor Geneviève Leclair at the podium. Photo by Rosalie O’Connor, with permission from Boston Ballet. On Friday, Hat City Music Theater announced the 2016-17 American Prize winners in orchestral conducting. This national award series recognizes distinguished performances by conductors working across the United States. Geneviève Leclair, a professor at Berklee College
INTERVIEW: Composer Ketty Nez on Writing Opera – Music, Words, and All Arts Music Opera by Basil Considine - April 29, 2017April 30, 2017 Last December, the Metropolitan Opera staged Kaija Saariaho's L'Amour de Loin, its first production of an opera written by a female composer since 1903. William Robin of the New York Times took the occasion to interview 10 female composers about their experience writing opera and working as composers; the headline read,
INTERVIEW: About the Sisters of Swing (History Theatre) Arts Music Theatre by Basil Considine - April 26, 2017April 26, 2017 Cat Brindisi, Katie Hahn, and Jen Burleigh-Bentz in the History Theatre's production of Sisters of Swing. Sisters of Swing, which opens tonight at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis, tells the story of the Andrews Sisters – one of the best-selling singing groups of all time. This close harmony group of three
REVIEW: Splendid Bluest Eye (Guthrie Theater) Arts Theatre by Basil Considine - April 23, 2017April 24, 2017 The cast of the Guthrie Theater's production of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Photo by Dan Norman. Do you like your theatre interesting, intelligent, engaged with deep social issues, and not beating you over the head with a lecture? Do you also like brilliant acting, intriguing stories, and well-done perception shifts
FEATURE: Double Casting / INTERVIEW: Soprano Miriam Khalil on Bohème and More (Minnesota Opera) Arts Music Opera Theatre by Basil Considine - April 23, 2017April 22, 2017 A photo collage of soprano Miriam Khalil. See the originals and more at MiriamKhalil.com. The economics and programming of opera during the so-called Golden Age of Opera – the mid-19th-century up to the start of the First World War – were very different than they are today. Most opera companies operated on
INTERVIEW: Soprano Nicole Cabell on Mimi, Bohème, and More (Minnesota Opera) Arts Music Opera Theatre by Basil Considine - April 22, 2017April 22, 2017 A photo collage of soprano Nicole Cabell on- and offstage. See the original photos and more at Nicole-Cabell.com. Two weeks from today, Minnesota Opera opens the last production in its 2016-2017 season: Giacomo Puccini's classic opera La Bohème. The opera's flowing, through-composed score and concise verismo narrative originally took audiences aback; within
INTERVIEW: Crafting a New Take on Ibsen’s Master Builder Arts Theatre by Basil Considine - April 9, 2017April 9, 2017 There are four plays by Danish playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) that are commonly produced in the United States today. Which one you know (or know of) is likely a function of your interest. Feminists favor A Doll's House. Pianists and orchestral musicians favor Peer Gynt, for which Edvard Grieg wrote incidental music preserved in two
INTERVIEW: The Ladies of PRIME Productions on Little Wars and More Arts Theatre by Basil Considine - April 8, 2017April 9, 2017 Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas in their apartment in the early 1920s; the pair hosted many dinner parties with literary luminaries. Photo by Man Ray. It's relatively uncommon for a new company operating under an Actor's Equity Association contract to suddenly appear in town, so when PRIME Productions announced its launch in March, the announcement
REVIEW: Youthful West Side Story Runs Scared (Ordway) Arts Dance Music Opera Theatre by Basil Considine - April 6, 2017April 7, 2017 Desiree Davar as Anita (center) with the Shark Girls in the Ordway Center for the performing Arts production of West Side Story. Photo by Rich Ryan. Where should one begin with an iconic musical like West Side Story? Composer Leonard Bernstein began by saying, "I'd always thought of West Side Story in terms of teenagers." This focus is