The irony is that what “Hamilton” represents now is exactly what opera used to be: a thrilling, contemporary, immersive stage presentation that’s a union of story, text, music, image and movement, and that gets under the skin and into the blood of a wide audience that feels it speaks profoundly to them. There’s something addictive about “Hamilton,” and that’s partly a result of spending three hours fully concentrated on sound and spectacle, straining to get every word, alongside hundreds of other people doing exactly the same thing. You don’t get that from a recording. Nor, often, do you get it in an opera house
Tag: 07.06.18
A Proposed New Theatre In England Gets A High Court Legal Challenge
The local planning council gave permission for a 1200-seat theatre in a park in the city of Tunbridge Wells, but there’s a challenge: “Former conservative councillor Brian Ransley has submitted an application for judicial review to the high court, which means a judge will review the planning decision made by the council. The claim was based on an objection to the process that was used by the council to come to the decision, according to Ransley.”
Thandie Newton Says It’s Time For More Diversity In Sci-Fi
Newton, star of Westworld, lays it out: “Science fiction is a projection of a time that hasn’t even happened, so if you don’t populate that place with people of different skin tones, shame on you. What it actually is is the reflection of what those makers do in their daily lives, how little they hang out with people of different skin tones. These are the key people and it’s like, ‘Oops-a-daisy, I don’t have a lot of black friends,’ and that’s a reality.”
A Rich Photography Prize That Intends To Highlight The Environmental Crises In Our World
The Prix Pictet Award rewards realism with a message. “As photographers have become increasingly fascinated by conceptualism, the award champions the unfashionable notion that photography’s primary duty is to show the world as it is — and, if possible, to change it.”
What Audience Members Now Think When A Ballet Suddenly Stops
During a performance of Swan Lake, “The curtain came down. The orchestra stopped. The house lights came up. There was no announcement. Most people were on their feet, and many started heading for the doors. We debated what to do. We scanned the crowds below, trying to make sense of what we were seeing. In the balcony, we were acutely aware of how high up our seats were and how many people were in the building. Our hearts were pounding. We did not see a threat, but people were reacting as though something were very wrong.”
A Theatre Director Takes A Research Trip (And Some Selfies)
Lileana Blain-Cruz went to New Orleans before she began directing Marcus Gardley’s “The House That Will Not Stand,” which is set in 1813 in the city. She documented what she discovered, and “even the food, she reported, felt relevant.”
In Santa Fe, ‘Doctor Atomic’ Is A Very Local Opera
Peter Sellars, who is re-creating the 2005 opera for a run in Santa Fe, says he’s also reconsidering elements of it. “Here the story is, of course, the Los Alamos laboratory, … but also the ‘downwinders,’ the people living with all these cancers from all the test sites — and the pueblos that are 10 minutes away from Los Alamos, where most people and their families were employed.”
Artist Steve Ditko, Co-Creator Of Spider-Man And Doctor Strange, Has Died At Age 90
Though he left Marvel after a serious falling out with Stan Lee, he worked for other comic publishers and returned to Marvel and worked as a freelancer from the 1970s onward. ” Among his last creations was Squirrel Girl in 1992, who has become a cult favorite in recent years.”
Frederick Wiseman Describes The Process Of Making His Detailed, Quiet, Thorough Documentaries
At the time of the profile, the 88-year-old documentarian was editing footage from the New York Public Library, and he had more than 150 hours to cut down to two or three. “While the technique is uncompromising, some of the observations are laugh-aloud funny – as when a telephone operator valiantly attempts to explain that unicorns don’t exist, or a picture librarian demonstrates a system of themed archiving with images of ‘dogs in action’. ‘Everything that I find is coincidental, but there’s nothing coincidental about the final film,’ explains Wiseman, who is not only the director and editor, but the sound recordist and producer.”
A Daring Opera Leader Leaves His Mark In Provence
Bernard Foccroulle is getting ready to go. What’s his legacy at the Aix-en-Provence Festival? “During the past 11 years he has made the Aix festival … feel more connected: to young artists, whom it has assiduously fostered; to new work, which it has commissioned in quantity and quality; to the operatic canon, which it has refreshed with provocative stagings and musical visions; to new audiences; and to its Mediterranean region, which it has celebrated with forays into North African and Middle Eastern styles without seeming patronizing.”