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
REVIEW: Timely Wicked-ness (Oprheum/Hennepin Theatre Trust) Arts Dance Music Theatre by Ali O'Reilly - April 17, 2017April 17, 2017 Jessica Vosk as Elphaba in the touring production of Wicked. Photo by Joan Marcus. The first (and only other) time I saw Wicked was in 2008, from the nosebleeds of Chicago’s Oriental Theatre, where it would play to 3.2 million audience members in a period of 3.5 years. The cast then featured
REVIEW: Fun Crisis in Women on the Verge (NHCCT) Arts Dance Music Theatre by Bev Wolfe - April 10, 2017April 10, 2017 The cast of North Hennepin Community College Theatre's production of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Photo by Mike Ricci. Pedro Almodovar wrote and directed the Spanish Film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (WVNB) in 1988. The film received critical acclaim, won the New York Film Critics
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
INTERVIEW: Ilima Considine as the Sexbots on SXSW, Summertime, and More Arts Lifestyle Music Visual Arts by Twin Cities Arts Reader - April 5, 2017April 5, 2017 Ilima Considine with PDX Dance Collective. Photo by Micah Goldstein. Two weeks after the 2017 installment of South by Southwest closed its doors, it's still the post-recovery (and/or hangover) period for festival attendees. Since its founding in 1987, this Austin, Texas-based festival has grown from a small new music festival to one
REVIEW: Dark Fun in Matilda: The Musical (Hennepin Theatre Trust) Arts Dance Music Theatre by Bev Wolfe - April 1, 2017April 1, 2017 Jaime MacLean as Matilda in Matilda: The Musical. Photo by Cybil von Tiedemann. Child abuse runs rampant in the Orpheum Theatre’s presentation of the Broadway touring musical Matilda. The musical is based upon Roald Dahl’s children's novel Matilda. Dahl is famous for such books as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. For
NEWS: Walker Art Center Transforms into Giant Robot, Stops Monster Menace (April Fools) Arts Dance Dining Lifestyle Movies Music Opera Theatre Visual Arts by Basil Considine - April 1, 2017April 1, 2017 The W.A.L.K.E.R. giant robot prepares to deal a finishing blow to the monster that menaced Minneapolis this morning. The Minneapolis Monster Menace has come to an end. In a stunning development, the Walker Art Center transformed into a giant robot and defeated the monster menacing Uptown in a climactic battle on
FEATURE: The Ordway’s White Christmas and Vocal Teeth (April Fools) Arts Dance Music Theatre by Basil Considine - April 1, 2017April 1, 2017 Ann Michaels in a discarded promotional photo for the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts/5th Avenue Theatre coproduction of White Christmas. Photo by Rich Ryan. Last November, while Minnesota was still flirting with fall and winter weather, the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts was going full-speed ahead with plans for an
REVIEW: Good Cider from Twisted Apples (Nautilus Music Theater) Arts Music Opera Theatre by Basil Considine - March 29, 2017March 29, 2017 Minnie Pearson (Norah Long), Ray Perason (Gary Briggle), and Hal Winters (Eric Morris) in Twisted Apples. If your life is missing opera and you can't wait until La Bohème arrives in May, see Twisted Apples. For that matter, if you like opera, period – or stories told with interesting, beautiful, and emotional turns of