By Paul Horsley What makes a performing-arts series great? For starters, you need the confidence of concert-goers, who have learned over the years you’ll do everything in your power to bring the world’s best (both among established artists and rising talent). In addition, you need the faith of the artists themselves, who know from experience […]

By Paul Horsley The Lyric Opera’s production of Donizetti’s frothy The Elixir of Love, which runs through March 20th at the Kauffman Center, has several things going for it. First, it offers richly detailed set designs by Allen Moyer, including a downstage curtain-drop painted in playful hues: a rural landscape in the style of Grant […]

By Paul Horsley When David Ludwig began falling in love with the violin virtuoso Bella Hristova, he knew two things right away. One, that he wanted to write a concerto for her some day. And two, that it would begin with a loud crash. Not to suggest that the relationship was filled with turmoil, David […]

By Paul Horsley Imagine the tale: A city slicker blows into a small town hoping to sell dubious goods to gullible farmers. Some are fooled, but not the bookish heroine, who is the cleverest and, it turns out, the most interesting woman in town. Sound familiar? If the plot of The Elixir of Love resembles […]

By Paul Horsley It’s true that dancing the lead in Swan Lake is the dream of many young ballerinas, but not necessarily for the reasons you might expect. Quite simply, the dual role of Odette/Odile contains such an array of artistic, technical and psychological complexities that for more than a century it has remained an […]

By Paul Horsley One of the reasons that millions of readers over the years have been drawn to Anne Frank’s indelible diary is that it permits us a personal and profoundly human way of thinking about the unthinkable. Discussing the Holocaust is always a challenge but Anne’s diary, first published in 1947 and more recently […]

By Paul Horsley Alex Saxon may be a star of TV and films these days, but he gives a lot of credit to the firm theatrical foundation he received growing up in the Kansas City area. From the age of eight the Liberty native, currently starring in MTV’s hit show “Finding Carter,” acted, sang and […]

By Paul Horsley When manmade laws seem to contradict fundamental human law, how is a civil society to decide between right and wrong? The Coterie Theatre’s upcoming production of And Justice for Some: The Freedom Trial of Anthony Burns asks big questions: Though not exactly ripped from today’s headlines, it has lessons for all of […]

By Paul Horsley When you create a new Nutcracker, you’re inventing from your own personal ballet experience but you’re also drawing on several centuries of dance history. “Nutcracker has always been a part of my life, from the time I was a child to this very minute,” said Devon Carney during a recent break from […]

By Paul Horsley Keeping a favorite holiday show fresh, year in and year out, requires care and vigilance. Each November J. Kent Barnhart begins the meticulous planning of Quality Hill Playhouse’s “Christmas in Song” by going through hundreds of songs (from his database of thousands) and narrowing the more than 500 Christmas-themed songs to about […]

By Paul Horsley What will we do in the evenings when the lights go out? How will we entertain ourselves when the nuclear cataclysm brings down the grid and there’s no electricity: no television, no internet, no cinema? These are questions playwright Anne Washburn asks in her brilliantly provocative Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, which […]

By Paul Horsley Fairy tales may be populated largely by imaginary characters, but they exist to tell us things about ourselves. Jaroslav Kvapil’s libretto for Dvořák’s Rusalka concerns a water-nymph who yearns to be human; at the same time the 1901 opera, which opens at the Lyric Opera on November 7th, teaches us to be […]

By Paul Horsley “O hushed October morning mild,” Robert Frost wrote, “beguile us in the way you know.” If you want a good sampling of what the Harriman-Jewell Series has presented over the last 51 years, look no further than this month’s offerings. The Series offers half a dozen performances drawing on an amazing range […]

By Paul Horsley The Lyric Opera’s newish production of Don Giovanni, which opened September 26th at the Kauffman Center, embraces the opera’s light-dark contrasts in ways both external and internal. By setting the 1787 opera as a film noir the production opens up design possibilities that exploit the chiaroscuro nature of such movies as The […]

By Paul Horsley The Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s production of Sunday in the Park with George, which opened September 18th at the Nelson-Atkins Museum’s Atkins Auditorium, is visually so complex that it keeps the eye occupied even at points where Stephen Sondheim’s drama lags. Perhaps that’s appropriate for a piece of musical theater that is […]

By Paul Horsley Opera choruses: You know you love ’em. The big splashy numbers in the drama where the lights go brilliant and dozens of boisterous singers fill the stage will color and sound. Sometimes the music is so good that you wish you could hear it without all the distractions of costumes and stage […]

By Paul Horsley Don Giovanni: despicable misogynist, or dashing ladies’ man with anger-management issues? When the Lyric Opera’s creative team, led by director Kristine McIntyre and scenic designer R. Keith Brumley, set about to craft a fresh concept for Mozart’s and Da Ponte’s most troublesome opera, they sought a world with all the ambiguity and […]

By Paul Horsley One of the most satisfying concerts I attended this summer was that of tenor Joseph DeSota and pianist Natalia Rivera, who gave a sophisticated performance of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin on August 9th at Grace & Holy Trinity Cathedral. It was part of the “Summer Music at the Cathedrals” series sponsored by […]

By Paul Horsley So let’s say you’re a major theater company and you need a big splash for your new season, but your building is under construction until late fall. What to do? In a word: innovate. Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George, a multidimensional reflection on the nature of art and creativity, […]

By Paul Horsley Theater is like any form of communication in that it boils down to one thing: two people talking. With this in mind, Kansas City Actors Theatre has determined to devote its 11th season to “two-handers,” plays consisting of two characters who command the stage for an entire evening. True, economics might have […]

By Paul Horsley One of the fruits of Kansas City’s performing-arts community is an abundance of opportunities for young people. From orchestras to dance groups, children’s theater to music lessons of all kinds, our region is host to dozens of places where young folks can gain skills and learn the joy of playing, dancing, acting […]