Music
Another Opening…
After coping with a two-year cloud of construction, shuttered bus stops and a quirky online calendar, the Manhattan School of Music celebrated its centennial by opening the doors of Neidorff-Karpati Hall. With new lighting, décor and – best of all – a new entrance direct from Claremont Avenue, MSM’s Opera Theater mounted a double bill: the rarely seen I Due Timidi (by Nino Rota) and Puccini’s Suor Angelica. The Rota was originally conceived as a radio performance (yes, Italy’s national media still actually broadcasts classical music) in 1950. The composer is best remembered for his movie scores for Fellini and others; his librettist (Suso Cecchi D’Amico) known for her script for The Bicycle Thief and work on almost a hundred other films. With a story of thwarted love, it followed the guidelines for many Italian operas and had a limited afterlife on European stages.
Suor Angelica, on the other hand. though first presented in New York in 1918 as part of Puccini’s trilogy, has remained beloved to this day. Running under an hour and delivering intense emotion from the first few measures, it demands the art and craft of a powerful singer/actress who is onstage almost continuously. In MSM’s version, directed by Donna Vaughn (MSM’s Artistic Director of Opera and a national treasure), Sasha Gutierrez delivered the voice, the movement and the wrenching tragedy to pin you to your seat.
NB: With its revamped main stage, other production spaces and streaming master classes, MSM provides Upper Manhattan with a welcome magnet for live music. Even better: it is so far adhering to four performances and double casting of its staged offerings – a boon to its artists who flourish in the light. https://www.msmnyc.edu/msm-performances/
A Joyful Noise: Heads Up
After years of neglect by the millions seeking blockbuster exhibitions, the Met Museum fixed its gaze on the André Mertens galleries for musical instruments and showered its glories with a makeover. The walk-through at the press opening was shared by three curators glowing with delight at what they had wrought. What a transformation! This was no silent history; they had managed to translate the contexts and sounds into visual arrangements that reached out to impart joy. The first vitrine gave it away: it was titled Fanfare, with brasses, conchs, pre-Colombian pottery, and mention of the Golden Ratio of the conch prized by later makers of brass instruments seeking to imitate the notes of its scales. History and politics were everywhere marked by treasures meant to be blown, bowed, plucked, beaten. The range? From carved ivory elephants (“Patience: If we wait, the British will leave.”) to a Stuart Davis 1939 mural for WNYC’s Studio B.
Now you will be doubly rewarded. In March and April there will be three concerts adding to the mix; two in Grace Rainey Rogers auditorium, and the third ( on April 6) by Juilliard 415 moving through multiple galleries like historical performance pied pipers. Follow that theorbo!
April 6, 2016; 6 – 8 PM. Free with museum admission.
The perfect respite from holiday excess sits on a quiet side street in a gloriously 
French treasure and Roman luxury. 
from Mercury, the messenger of the gods as well as the patron deity of commerce and the arts. The hand work of the master metalsmiths is breathtaking; their dedication and skill can still be marveled at. And, in an echo of their painstaking artistry, one of the two large statues of Mercury on view was found in fragments then, like an infinitely complex jigsaw puzzle, put back together piece by piece by the Getty conservators on their mission to recapture the past.
While we hold our collective breath to see when (and if) Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will meet again, and try to imagine what they might say to one another, we can 
Film
who made good at home, Alan Gilbert became the orchestra’s music director in 2007 and, two years later in a real-estate-is-destiny move across Lincoln Center’s plaza, the head of Juilliard’s conducting department as well. It was win-win for everyone. 
Gilbert is going to Hamburg to lead 
Given the luxuries of extensive rehearsal time and enthusiasm for trying out the new and rethinking
The singers (especially Juliana Levinson in the title role, Zuhao Zhang as a cad who reforms, and Monica Conesa as his implacable ex-) were outstanding. With the intimacy of smaller auditoriums in both locations, you are not only close to the singers and musicians, but buoyed 
of awards, prizes and grants, and with solid relationships with the best and brightest of Europe and Latin America as collaborators and supporters, Solomonoff has made a movie which everyone should watch. It’s confident, as smooth and addictive as her talent can spin it out, with a well-meaning but feckless hero (Guillermo Pfening, Jury Prize for Best Actor at Tribeca, 2017) who grabs your heart and doesn’t let go. When he finally becomes his own man, you’ll want – you’ll need – to cheer. 
The story of this actor, a soap opera star in Argentina, and an undocumented gay immigrant/babysitter in New York waiting for a big part in a big international film that never materializes, touches on every hot button issue in the book without ever slowing down or going stale. Pfening is surrounded by an ensemble cast that works all the time, yet the work seems effortless, the actors always at ease. As it moves between New York and Buenos Aires, Nobody’s Watching transports you right to its deeply satisfying conclusion, Solomonoff’s gift to those who will be grateful to share her talents and the shine of her cast and crew. You will miss them all when the last frame turns to black. 
What sets it apart from many memoirs is its access to Willer’s visual skills (she’s a partner of the design firm, Pentagram), equaled by the work of DP 
aspect of its journey was the story of how Janko (a prolific musician, composer and arranger) found Anderson’s novel, persuaded her to come on board, to mentor him as he adapted her book into a script, and support him to direct it as his debut feature. But, without question, the revelation that she, as the novel’s author, was present on-set during the entire production and that she and Janko are still friends was nothing short of amazing. While many directors will not permit an author of source material, or even the script writer, anywhere near their shooting schedule, Year by the Sea was definitely its own movie; a communal effort from a community that has remained together. Add to that the fact that Anderson’s book is not a novel, but a personal memoir of her transformation from hausfrau to the fully realized woman she has clearly become, and it is even more exceptional. 
real conviction, aided and abetted by her two best friends: Celia Imrie as psychoanalyst Eric Ericson’s free-spirited wife and caregiver, and S. Epatha Merkelson as the long-suffering and empathetic agent who shepherded Anderson through the process of turning her life into her best-selling book. Together, they spend a year in a remote New England fishing village while Anderson (and the husband she has been living apart from who works through a transformation of his own) learns how to balance self-realization with loving support. The preview audience was deeply enthusiastic, and the film will resonate with many viewers, just as the book did with its readers.
Caught Van Gogh’s Ear at the Signature Theater and was intrigued by its synesthesia, with music of the period (played live by a fluid group of strings and piano)used to enhance and amplify Van Gogh’s paintings and distress. Together, the music (including songs performed by Chad Johnson as Vincent’s brother, Theo, and Renee Tatum in dual roles of sister-in-law and lover) and scripted lines (based primarily on Vincent’s letters) spoken by Carter Hudson as the brilliant artist captured the ecstasy of Impressionism when it ignited a fin-de-siècle revolution. David Bengali’s projections and the set and costumes by Vanessa James (especially those worn by the musicians) kept the fires burning up to the inevitable finale. 
had been designed by 
inspiration; they are legion! The man had curiosity and few restrictions on what sparked his enthusiasm for artistic potential in his designs. This is immediately apparent when the source materials (many dating to antiquity) are placed next to what Sottsass made of them. 
and a joyful reminder of Memphis, that 1980s Milanese vortex of post-Modernism. 
Rahway Prison decades ago to sing R & R and, later, rap. Improbably (but deservedly) they won a contract from Disney to record 
Rahul Jain’s 
Jain knows this world well: he’s a textile designer, art historian, and author of 
Director 
Of course it isn’t quite the same as being in the theatre. But these live broadcasts 
He begins with immense self-assurance and lack of pity for the plight of Tamora’s son, whom he puts to death. And there’s the rub! He’s tired, he’s old, he’s vengeful, he cannot see beyond the rituals of Rome and appeasement of his gods. At the start, Andronicus only slenderly knows himself and doesn’t seem to see that his actions might have uncontrollable consequences. Nor will he allow himself to become Emperor, though the people want it. It’s his voice that tips the balance into rousing the crowd to appoint Saturninus as Emperor; it’s therefore his shirking of responsibility that causes so much chaos and damage to ensue. At the beginning, like Lear, he cannot see beyond his entitlements, his power and his beliefs. Does it make you think of anyone in the world of contemporary politics, by any chance? Clearly Shakespeare was already contemplating that the fault was not in our stars but in ourselves. McIntyre’s production suggests this strongly. 
Martin Hutson
whose credo is that if he ever did a good deed he regrets it. And yet, when it comes to it, he loves the baby son that he fathers on Tamora and strives to save it. But is this unexpected paternal love or simply projection of his own ego onto the child? The strength of this reading is that we are left with several ambiguities. Aaron comes across as a very early draft of Iago, of course: unfathomable, seemingly motivated only by his own evil.
A particularly confident and appealing cast included outstanding work from 
Expanding on that theme, Act Two opened in a nightclub run by Mariana (
The reasons for 
Gastón Solnicki claims it was inspired by Béla Bartók’s 1918 opera, 
difficulties to come. Yet Solnicki’s saturated images and the music create a sense of dread that gradually and subtly intensifies. The last frames reveal one of the women standing on a ferry with her suitcase, relocating, perhaps to a better life. But has she (or any of the other women) grown up? That’s for you to decide. If you like very elegantly filmed mysteries, this one’s for you to solve.
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