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This evening Alice, David and I saw Working on a Special Day at Barrington Stage. This is without doubt the most creative, imaginative, fantastic production of a play I have ever seen. It is based on Una Giornata Particulare by Ettore Scola, Roggero Maccari, adapted by Gigliola Fantoni. The translation is by Ana Graham and Antonio Vega,who also directed and performed in the play. They are an amazing pair.
As we were seated in the St.Germain Theatre, we commented on the lack of scenery. The entire stage and floor were painted black. The two performers came out and spoke off-handedly with the audience before the play itself began. On stage were two chairs with men's and women's clothing folded on them and a couple of tables. Gradually the two actors got into their characters of Antonietta and Gabriele. They also, when off stage, were the voices of Antonietta's six children, doorbells, ringing phones, the neighbor, etc.
The play takes place on the day in 1938 when Hitler and Mussolini met in Rome. Antonietta's parrot escapes from its cage and flys out the window. Gabriele has a gun in his hand and is about to commit suicide when she rings his doorbell. As the play progresses they talk, dance, make love, and argue. It turns out that Gabriele is gay and has been fired from his job as a radio announcer.
With chalk they create windows as needed, a lamp, a telephone, a parrot cage and so on, while carrying on the drama. They finally part, him to escape the fascist government of Italy and she to return to her abusive husband.Their versatility is amazing.
It was an exciting night in the theatre!
How lucky can we be? Another winner!
Tonight Mary, Ellen, Sue, David and I saw a fabulous production of Cole Porter's Kiss Me Kate at Barrington Stage.
I saw the original Broadway production in 1950, my first year in New York City, at the Schubert Theatre. Patricia Morrison and Alfred Drake were the stars. It was probably one of the first Broadway shows I ever saw.
Elizabeth Stanley
Paul Anthony Stewart
Tonight's production had all the energy and fun of the original. Elizabeth Stanley and Paul Anthony Stewart led tonight's proceedings with vigor and good strong voices. Mara Davi was Lois Lane/Bianca, Tyler Hanes was Bill Calhoun/Lucentio, Matthew Bauman, Paul, Carlos Lopez and Michael Dean Morgan, the two gangsters
(who stopped the show with 'Brush up your Shakespeare) and a chorus of agile and attractive singers and dancers who lit up the stage with their energy and talent. Every moment was one of delight.
The music and lyrics by Cole Porter include one great song after another. This show is from the days when you actually went out humming the tunes. And what great tunes. Porter's sophistication and humor invested every song with gaiety and class. It is a great musical.
The sets and lighting were excellent and an enthusiastic audience enjoyed every moment.
This is what a Broadway show is supposed to be.
Last night we witnessed an 83 year old woman present a fabulous retelling of her life in dance and tonight we heard an amazing 21 year old 'cellist bare his musical soul in an extraordinary recital. That's covering nearly a century of talent. Carmen de Lavallade is the dancer. Julian Müller is the 'cellist.
He is currently a student at the Cleveland Institute of Music where he studies with Sharon Robinson. He has been the recipient of several grants from the Ferris Burtis Music Foundation.
http://ferrisburtisfoundation.blogspot.com
Tonight, with the excellent Hyanghyun Lee at the piano, he gave us a wonderful concert in Ghent, NY. The program opened with Fantasiestücke, Op. 73, by Robert Schumann. The two artists performed these delightful pieces with ardor. I have performed some of these pieces with a 'cellist I worked with for many years as well as with several clarinetists. They are winners!
This was followed by the Andante from Sinfonia Concertante, Op. 125, by Sergei Prokofiev, and a new work by Julian Müller, Temperaments. This engaging work has Julian singing as well as playing his 'cello. This is a young man with a lot to say about music and life. And with a lot of talent. It was most interesting.
The second half of the program included the Sonata for Piano and 'Cello No. 5 by Beethoven and ended with a heartbreaking rendition of the Andante Cantabile of Tchaikovski, dedicated to his grandmother, who was an opera singer. It's easy to see where some of these musical genes came from.
Julian plays with a fiery technique and a passionate approach to whatever he does. I am so proud that our Foundation is helping him on his way to what I know will be a brilliant career.
Bravo Julian!!
This afternoon we spent a delightful afternoon with Carmen de Lavallade. At 83, the dancer still moves with the grace and style for which she is remembered, though more slowly.
With Heinke and Sam we went to Jacob's Pillow in Becket for this remarkable afternoon of reminiscences by one of the world's great dancers.
In a production that includes movement, music, background motion pictures from the dancer's life, Ms. Lavallade enchanted a full house in the Doris Duke Theatre.
She traced her life from her first dance lessons through her work with Alvin Ailey and her marriage to Geoffrey Holder. She moved about the stage with an ease that belied her 83 years and proved, once more, that in addition to being a wonderful dancer, she is a fine actress.
It was a lovely afternoon in a lovely place.
This evening Alice, David, and I saw The Other Place, by Sharr White, at Barrington Stage's second theatre, the St. Germain Stage. It is a vivid depiction of a person on the fringe of dementia, partially realizing what is happening to her, and partially living in several other worlds, past and present.
For anyone who has ever dealt with someone going through this pathetic life change, and even for those who have never experienced it, this play is a very true to life tale of a person at the border of sanity.
Marg Helgenberger portrays Juliana, a woman going through this terrifying experience. Her change from a sophisticated business woman into a confused and psychologically destroyed person is amazing.
Equally effective is Katya Campbell as The Woman, who plays several different roles, Juliana's shrink, her daughter, and a stranger into whose home Juliana goes. The house being 'The Other Place', which Juliana and her husband once owned.
Brent Langdon was excellent as Ian, Juliana's husband and Adam Donshik was very good in several roles as The Man.
It provided a challenging and dramatic evening with a tour de force performance by Ms. Helgenberger.
Barrington Stage is off to a good start this season with the powerful drama.
While I am aware that it is de rigueur that one does not write rave reviews about one's own students, I feel compelled to state that last night Kathleen Callahan Hardman took on Madama Butterfly and came out the winner.
This role is one of the longest and most difficult vocally in the soprano repertoire. Once Cio Cio San makes her entrance she seldom stops singing. And of course, it is an emotional and tragic role to enact.
Kate brought her beautiful voice and fine acting skills to the role and produced a touching, strong characterization.
This production by the Connecticut Lyric Opera and the Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra was presented by The Greater Middletown Concert Association at Middletown High School.
Adrian Sylveen was the conductor and led his ensemble well. At times the orchestra out-balanced the singers, especially when they were singing in their mid-range.
Other cast members included Silvana Chu as Suzuki, singing with a fine voice and always in character. Daniel Juarez was B.F. Pinkerton. His tenor voice lacks focus in the middle range and he was often covered by the orchestra. He was able to produce high notes with clarion power.
I especially liked Luke Scott as Sharpless and Daniel Kamalic as Goro. Both of these men sang with fine sound that was always heard over the orchestra.The other male singers were also very good: Dean Murphy as Prince Yamadori, Ivan Conrad as The Bonze, and Miguel Angel Vasquez as the commissioner.
Most of the stage direction by Zalewski Sadlak was what you might expect with two exceptions. At the end of the Act 1 love duet I have usually seen Cio Cio San and Pinkerton walk offstage as they sing their high Cs (making it easier to have them sound pianissimo). Here they stood center stage and belted it out to the audience.
Secondly, at the end, after Butterfly sends the little child out to play and then kills herself, in this version she blindfolds the child who sits in the room during the act. Then when Pinkerton runs back on stage shouting Butterfly! Butterfly! Butterfly!, he usually falls on the floor beside her holding her dead body. Here when he came back, he knelt beside her for a moment, then picked up the child and handed him to his American wife who was waiting in the garden. Instant adoption. Rather insensitive, I would say.
I must hand it to this group for tackling an opera of this stature. It is a big undertaking for a small, local opera company.
Why anyone but Amanda McBroom should be allowed to sing cabaret is beyond me. Alice and I saw her 5:00 p.m. show today and, as always, she blew me away.
This lady knows how to sing and act and reach out into the audience and tug at your heart strings. When she sings the song she wrote for her daddy, a movie star, whose name was always 'Four or five down from Errol Flynn', I get misty-eyed.
And so does she.
She is so much in the moment of every song she sings that her emotion becomes your emotion.
Michelle Brourman, her long-time pianist is an equally talented musician and the co-composer of many of her songs.
Together they put on a cabaret act that is as compelling as anything I have ever seen.
After the show I spoke to her and told her that she was one of my two favorite singers.
The other is Montserrat Caballe.
That is great company to be in.
Catch her on You Tube or at http://www.amcbroom.com/
You will be enchanted!
