Aspen Santa Fe Ballet has been called one of the standard-bearers for the future of American dance, and their programs of almost entirely new works suggest that, while ballet remains at the foundation of what we do, dance must continue to explore new territory to keep growing. Their Harriman-Jewell Series program on March 31st at the […]

Midori possesses an exceptional gift for rhetorical expression and soaring melodic lines, and her violin tone is rich and full, never forced, even when she bears down hard. On October 27th at the Folly Theater she and her pianist, Özgür Aydin, were best in Shostakovich’s Sonata, Op. 134, where their inner musical personalities meshed beautifully to convey the composer’s […]

Sure The Barber of Seville is a frothy, wry and at times deliciously silly comedy. But it can’t be played as pure farce, says William Theisen, who directs the Lyric Opera’s production opening on April 21st at the Kauffman Center. “These characters cannot be cartoons,” said the director. “You do have a heightened reality here, and certainly Bartolo is very […]

Unicorn production of ambitious war drama rides on fine direction, choice performances During the second Iraq war that began in 2003 we had plenty of movies, books, plays, documentaries and news stories about the impact of the war on those who fought it, and on the Iraqi people who lived through it. But there’s been […]

The Heartland Men’s Chorus has an uncanny knack for picking timely, even “hot” topics for their programs. In 2003 they performed The Few, the Proud, a multimedia concert that told stories about gays and lesbians in the armed forces throughout American history – literally the same week that we entered into the Iraq war.  All God’s Children dealt with […]

Italy, Ireland, Mexico, Cuba, Russia, Scotland, China, Canada, Australia: The Harriman-Jewell Series’ 2012-2013 season boasts one of the most cosmopolitan rosters in its 46-year history, and also one of the most varied. The goal, says executive director Clark Morris, is to maintain the international excellence for which the Series is known while achieving an impressive variety of […]

In 2007, Giuseppe Filianoti feared his opera career might be over. The Italian-born singer, whom critics were calling one of the leading tenors of his generation, underwent surgery to remove a cancerous thyroid gland, and in the aftermath one of his vocal chords became completely paralyzed. But Giuseppe, a native of Reggio Calabria in the far south of […]

Tenor displays suave lyricism, broad emotional range Italian tenor Giuseppe Filianoti possesses a clear, honest voice that is imbued with pathos and a sort of sunny heroism in the upper range, as well as firm pitch control overall. But his real strength is his wide emotional range, which can embrace everything from sorrow to ebullience, resignation to […]

NATIVE DAUGHTER: A Colorful Homecoming for DiDonato at the Kauffmann Center The Kauffmann Center’s Helzberg Hall has certainly seen its share of impressive performances throughout this auspicious inaugural season, and last night’s Symphony spectacular proved to be one of the more ambitious and successful of these endeavors to date. For the first time, the hall […]

KC REP PRESENTS POWERFUL DRAMA OF SLAVERY, FREEDOM, FAITH In one of the first exchanges of Matthew Lopez’ The Whipping Man,former slave owner Caleb DeLeon begins shouting orders to former slave Simon – fetch this, fetch that. It is days after the end of the Civil War, and Simon winces, surprised that his former master has not […]

Lyric strives toward new levels of achievement with ambitious opera. Nixon in China is drawn on a scale that is as grandiose as anything in opera, and the best productions of it embrace this cultural, historical and conceptual expansiveness with all their hearts. The Lyric Opera of Kansas City has taken up that challenge, intent on […]

Così fan tutte is a bit of a conundrum. Its plot is as ridiculous as that of any opera in the repertoire, but its music is so magnificent that we can’t not take it seriously. The Lyric Opera’s production of Mozart’s final opera buffa, which opened on November 5th at the Kauffman Center, makes for a satisfying evening because the company […]

Some dance companies are formed with a clearly etched vision of what they want to do, and they just go do that over and over. Others grow like Topsy, evolving with the vicissitudes and needs of the company itself and of the community it serves. A prime example of the latter is the Aspen Santa […]

Can an opera teach us things about historical events that we can’t glean from factual accounts alone? John Adams’ opera Nixon in China provides one of the most compelling answers to that question, for by general agreement it is a piece that deepens and broadens our understanding of President Nixon’s famous 1972 visit to Mao’s China and […]

Rational Exuberance: Ray Chen’s KC debut showcases substantial interpretive strengths A classical musician’s devotion to the intentions of composers long deceased often finds itself at odds with the present day’s realities of myriad stimuli and instant gratification. Therefore, it is becoming quite uncommon to encounter performers capable of captivating audiences while simultaneously revering thousands of markings in […]

You might think of Shakespeare as being all about language, but several of his works have been made into ballets in which the entire dramatic arc is expressed without a single word being uttered. Perhaps the most powerful of these is Romeo and Juliet, which owes much of its cache to a brilliant score by Prokofiev. It has been […]

Behzod Abduraimov almost didn’t become a pianist. At age 6 he failed his very first piano examination, getting stuck in the middle of Schumann’s The Wild Horsemanseveral times before his teacher finally told him to stop. “After that my teacher said I would never be able to play a piece on piano from beginning to end without […]

This year will go down in history as a milestone in Kansas City’s performing arts life, as the opening of the Kauffman Center has spurred all of our local arts groups to new heights. Here are a few of my favorite moments of the year, listed in chronological order. All of these have been reviewed […]

 January 6th-February 9th: Beer for Breakfast (American Heartland Theatre). Four buddies plan a weekend hunting trip, only to have one of the wives show up instead of her husband. What ensues is a sort of battle of the sexes “country-style,” with plenty of wit. January 20th-26th: Yo-Yo Ma, cello (Kansas City Symphony). Dvořák’s Concerto is one of the […]

OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES: KC BALLET PRESENTS FINE ‘NUTCRACKER’ IN KAUFFMAN CENTER The production of The Nutcracker that the late Todd Bolender created for the Kansas City Ballet is 30 years old this year, but at the opening performance on the afternoon of December 3rd it had a bright new look. That’s partly because it was […]

The Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s production of Peer Gynt must count as one of the loopier local theatrical experiences in recent memory. A Troll King with three heads, a priest in crimson high heels, a pig puppet on a stick: Director David Schweizer has taken Ibsen’s massive play and condensed it into two hours of zany antics—with lavishly whimsical […]