East Village Opera Company, the opera-rock hybrid company, first attracted buzz in 2004 with its live performances at Joe’s Pub. Two members of the company, co-founder Tyley Ross and AnnMarie Milazzo are currently singing miked, rock-infused versions of arias like Lakme’s Flower Duet, Verdi’s “La donne e mobile,” and Puccini’s “O mio babbino caro” as part of Remember Me, an integrated production featuring singers onstage with members of the Parsons Dance Company at the Joyce Theater. The show—one of three programs the Parsons is doing during this month’s residency at the Joyce—is billed as a completely revamped version of the show that aired on PBS last year, and features new choreography and costumes by Project Runway designer Austin Scarlett.
Remember Me is a bit analogous to a show like Mamma Mia in that it adds a story line to provide a framework for tunes that people already know—certainly the operagoers in the audience know them, and many of the non-opera audience do as well. read more
After watching i get lost: An Evening of Solos (February 4-6), part of the platform curated by choreographer Ralph Lemon at Danspace Project, I wondered why more solos aren’t paired on programs. Then again, that’s part of the allure of this new series, to allow accomplished artists to juxtapose other unique artists in ways that reveal so much more than if they were isolated. By nature, a soloist is both form and content, and so can be very difficult to execute, but both Judith Sánchez Ruíz and Souleymane Badolo excelled in the medium.
Sánchez Ruíz, from Cuba, performed And They Forgot To Love. Instantly striking was her costume, which appeared to be a lace-front, sheer-back top, when it was actually white tape applied carefully, her back bare above a black lace skirt. This immediately set forth the idea that our perception was one thing, reality another. read more
Speaking with 28-year-old tenor Sean Panikkar, you get the feeling he could do pretty much anything he set his mind to. He shows virtually none of the stereotypical traits that tend to come to mind when we hear the word “tenor”—the extreme nerves, flightiness, vanity, and so forth. The onetime engineering student, who was a winner of the 2009 George London Foundation Competition, speaks quickly but always with thought and intelligence, and occasional flashes of dry humor. He’s been taking a slow-and-steady approach to his career, which he explained when we met at AQ Kafé early in February, just as he was about to sing a recital on February 7 with soprano June Anderson at the Morgan Library. It was also just a few days before Ariadne auf Naxos was set to open at the Metropolitan Opera; he’s singing the secondary role of Brighella in that opera. (The Met radio broadcast of Ariadne will be on Saturday, February 20.) It’s not his Met debut, though; that was in 2008, when he sang Edmondo in Manon Lescaut. Panikkar, who is from Michigan, talked about why he doesn’t want to burn out by taking too many huge parts too early, the importance of Jon Vickers, playing in pep bands in high school, and balancing family with a career.
Melick: Tell me about your recital at the Morgan Library this Sunday—how long have you been planning it? read more
Lots of orchestras incorporate projected images of planets when they perform Holst’s The Planets, but not every orchestra’s hometown has jet propulsion labs and nearby rocket scientists as collaborators. So when I heard the Houston Symphony Orchestra was coming to Carnegie Hall on Thursday (Jan. 28) to play The Planets on January 28—with a new HD film of images from recent NASA space missions—I decided to head down to the box office to see what seats might be available for $20 or less. There was a balcony seat available for $18.50 with a “slight obstructed view” (as described by the ticket-seller). I bought the ticket, but then on the day before the concert, an extra ticket (orchestra row G, value $84) also fell in my lap. You’ll notice in the ticket photo (below the jump) that not one but two tickets are pictured. So I had my $18.50 seat up in the center balcony, and another downstairs. I made up my mind to sit downstairs for the first half of the concert, and trek upstairs after intermission. read more
There’s an interesting, welcome trendlet happening in New York dance now—choreographers as curators. Danspace Project has engaged Ralph Lemon to curate i get lost (through February 6), the first of its “platforms” designed to elucidate a distinct artistic perspective and add contextualization; Juliette Mapp curates the second platform, Back to New York City (March 1-April 10). At The Kitchen, Jon Kinzel’s Responsible Ballet And What We Need is a Bench to Put Books On runs through January 30, and is curated by Sarah Michelson.
Kinzel returns to perform in New York after a hiatus of several years, so it’s interesting to see how his work has gapped the time. In past work, he was interested in the total theater environment, with a strong emphasis on design, and in Responsible Ballet this continues. The visual elements, by Kinzel and Alexandre Kourako, are simple—white tape stripes on The Kitchen’s black brick wall which, late in the work, are stripped dramatically from the walls, and a wooden box which hides the dancers but for their legs, effecting “offstage” and partially hiding them as they contribute to the sound. read more
Rob Kapilow, the composer featured in the documentary Summer Sun, Winter Moon to air January 31st on SundayArts, was commissioned by the St. Louis and Kansas City Symphonies and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra to compose a symphonic work with a specific theme: a reflection of the enduring legacy of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Seeking to collaborate with Blackfeet tribal member Darrell Robes Kipp, the innovative artist delved into a sharply alternative – and controversial – avenue of perspective, that of the indigenous storyteller’s view “from the river bank, not the boat.” Summer Sun, Winter Moon documents the collaboration to create this cross cultural piece project that brings a Native perspective on American history to light.
In connection with the January 31st airing of the documentary, Kapilow recently answered a number of questions for SundayArts via email about his creative process and his journey with Summer Sun, Winter Moon
At the beginning of the documentary Darrell calls you a good Blackfoot. What is your relationship Native American tribes? Would you say that your creative collaboration created a kind of tribal bond?
I believe that relationships are with individuals and not groups. Before this project I had not a single relationship with a Native American. read more
Oh, the irony. One of this week’s better ticket values—the New York-based string quintet Sybarite5, which performed at the tiny Chelsea venue The Cell—brought me into one of New York’s most lush-feeling, upper-crusty spaces imaginable. For $20, on January 22 I sat in what felt like the front parlor of someone’s spacious, renovated nineteenth-century home, and listened to this alternative string group play for a little under two hours. The room dimensions and the intimate atmosphere weren’t probably far from the chamber-music standard in the nineteenth century, when many concerts were performed in salons or as invitation-only social events. None of the audience members, seated on old church pews or on chairs set up on platforms or on the floor, was more than about ten yards from the musicians. (Past the jump, see a preview of a free performance and party at another unusual performance space: the old downtown Tower Records store.) read more
Call it a week with four Sundays. This past week at the Metropolitan Opera, Placido Domingo (who’s last name means “Sunday” in Spanish) performed in four of the company’s seven performances—a trick the superstar (and the last of the “Three Tenors” still singing opera) will repeat next week as well. He’s singing in a revival of Simon Boccanegra and conducting the revival of Stiffelio, both operas by Verdi—and in an odd coincidence, both productions are directed by Giancarlo Del Monaco, the son of the great tenor Mario Del Monaco.
The main event was Domingo going where no tenor (not even the great Del Monaco) has gone before, singing the baritone title role in Boccanegra. Domingo began his career in Mexico as a baritone, and has always sung his tenor role with rich, burnished low notes, so the switch (while dramatic, and cause for a sold out crowd) was unsurprising given Domingo’s longevity and versatility. read more
Large ballet companies are, by necessity, always in a state of transition, with young dancers being promoted and senior dancers retiring, often with great fanfare and wistfulness. But now, more than ever, it seems that New York City Ballet is top-heavy with principals—30 in all, versus 15 soloists. A rash of promotions has taken place in the last few years, some of them premature, some well-deserved. But there hardly seems to be any difference between the two ranks casting-wise; soloists (and even corps members) seem to appear in lead roles with frequency, particularly with the age-appropriate leads of Romeo & Juliet. And some principals seem to disappear for spans of time.
The casting for the company’s recent run of A Midsummer Night’s Dream showcased the exciting young principal Sara Mearns (Titania) opposite Gonzalo Garcia (Oberon), in contrast to company veteran Darci Kistler, in the lead role in many of the performances. read more
Last Sunday, going stir crazy on a nasty rainy day, I took (dragged) my son and a friend of my daughter’s out to hear a woodwind quintet called PUFF! at South Orange Performing Arts Center in NJ ($10–15). The ensemble, in residence at Juilliard (an participants in the upcoming Focus! Festival, details after the jump), where all its members are graduate students, performed two of the better-known works for woodwind quintet—Barber’s Summer Music and Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin—and after intermission they played a piece I had never heard before, David Maslanka’s Woodwind Quintet No. 3, which incorporated bits of Bach chorale melodies into its playful, inventive texture.
Our little threesome sat in the tenth row, and though I feared we would be by far the youngest members of the audience there were several other families with children ranging from gurgling babies and squirming toddlers to me with my 12-year-old and 16-year-old. read more
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