A society that embraces the beauty and creativity of art is a society with the potential to expand beyond bounds.
Pirates, slave girls, pashas, eunuchs, heroes, a spurned wife, damsels in love and in distress, flamboyant costumes, 120 dancers, a shipwreck (what’s a ballet without a shipwreck?), this ballet has them all. Originally done a century ago, based on a poem of the same name by Byron, and choreographed by Marius Petipa, Le Corsaire has been gloriously updated and rechoreographed by Alexei Ratmansky and Yuri Burlaka.
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What happens when a couple who seems perfect from the outside decide to go their separate ways? Well, in “Divorce Party” they do just that, have a party to celebrate what they once had and mark their new beginnings.
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~By Norm Robins~ One might think it strange that “Pelish at the Movies” was written by Robins, not Pelish. Please
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You won’t want to miss seeing this breathtakingly beautiful production designed by Anthony Minghella and featuring Bunraku traditional Japanese puppetry along with the live singers. Puccini’s Madama Butterfly is one of the world’s best-loved and most-performed operas, not only because of its astonishingly lyrical beauty, but also because of its wholly believable story – a heartrending tragedy brought on by imperialism and the clash of different cultures.
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Music is magnificent! It soothes the soul. It tames the savage beast. It unites people of different countries and different philosophies. I don’t need to speak German to be captivated by a Beethoven symphony. I can be the smartest person in the world or have a room temperature IQ. Either way, I can be put at peace with man and God listening to an old Ella Fitzgerald recording.
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For its second live in HD transmission of the 2019-20 season, the Met has chosen Jules Massenet’s wonderfully melodic, Manon – a deliciously French take on the tragic story of Manon Lescaut (also made into a deliciously Italian opera by Puccini – but that’s another story!). A teenage girl from the country – far too pretty for her own good – is sent alone to the outskirts of Paris to be met by her cousin and escorted to a convent. Her non-too vigilant, and non-too-upstanding, cousin allows her to catch a glimpse of the decidedly un-convent-like life of actresses who are enjoying the company of wealthy “patrons”–and the rest, as we say, is history.
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~By Norm Robins~ ~Photos by Dana Nollsch~ Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
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The Bolshoi Ballet kicks off its 2019/20 season with their storied production of Raymonda. First performed at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg on January 19, 1898, it was choreographed by the legendary Marius Petipa for the Russian Imperial Ballet set to the stirring music of Alexander Glazunov.
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The Reno Chamber Orchestra opens its 2019/20 season Saturday, October 19th at 7:30 PM and Sunday, October 20th at 2 PM under the baton of its second candidate for permanent conductor Donato Cabrera. They will choose from the 6 finalist candidates in the Spring of 2020.
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Joker is a tale set in a city named Gotham, Gotham of Batman fame that is. A figure named Thomas Wayne is the principal antagonist of our mad protagonist. Capitalism is the enemy. Wayne, running for mayor of Gotham is the nexus between the corporate state and its citizens. Corporations enslave, imprison, murder, and drive mad the helpless millions. Our abused and marginalized hero strikes back, and the oppressed millions join him making his personal madness a national sickness. This cautionary tale argues that anarchy may be preferable to slavery.
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