By Paul Horsley Americans are surprisingly narrow-ranged in their cultural exposure these days, internet or no internet. For most people it’s either hip-hop or ballet but not both, hillbilly or Haydn, Disney or Dostoyevsky. But audience tastes weren’t always this balkanized: Quality Hill Playhouse’s current month-long production, “That’s Entertainment: The MGM Years,” reveals the extent […]

By Paul Horsley At 85, André Previn has nothing to prove. As one of the great musical geniuses of the 20th century and for that matter the 21st, the Berlin-born American whose family fled the Nazis has headed several international orchestras, won four music-category Oscars, and received fistfuls of kudos including the Kennedy Center Honors, […]

By Paul Horsley Silent Night, the World War I opera that is taking the music world by storm, is not a history lesson, and it’s not a sermon. It’s an image of what can happen in wartime when men and women who have been told they are enemies sit down and talk, in defiance of […]

By Paul Horsley If you’re not sure whether Mark Morris’ Acis and Galatea is opera or dance or theater or what, then you’re probably on the right track. “That’s historically accurate,” said Mark recently on the phone, pointing out that in the Baroque “opera included all of those things: That’s the whole point.” The choreographer’s […]

By Paul Horsley Any celebration of the Harriman-Jewell Series is to some extent a tribute to Richard Harriman, the late William Jewell College professor who cofounded the world-renowned series that bears his name. What a shame that Richard, who died in 2010, didn’t live to see this season’s 50th anniversary celebration, for among other things […]

By Paul Horsley Ballet is ephemeral at its core, the product of a certain time and place, a specific set of dancers, musicians and designers. This year it’s with no little sadness that the Kansas City Ballet bids farewell to Todd Bolender’s durable production of The Nutcracker, which after 34 years has run its course […]

By Paul Horsley The Italian Girl in Algiers contains as much delightful music as about any Rossini opera you could name, and though it is hardly a rarity worldwide it had, up to now, been produced only twice by the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, most recently in 1998. The production that opened November 8th […]

By Paul Horsley Just as Kansas Citians often think of themselves as residing at a geographic and a spiritual center-point of the United States, Macedonians characterize their nation as occupying a special place at the heart of Europe. So it’s especially apt that in 2004 the late Richard Harriman, whose mind was always working several […]

By Paul Horsley There are many reasons to make a ballet: One is to entertain. Some of our “serious” choreographers forget this at times, and the results are often overly abstract works that leave us saying, “Well, that was pretty, but what was it?” Septime Webre’s Alice (in wonderland) functions at the other end of […]

By Paul Horsley The staggering 30-year success of the Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey has been built on community-based projects, educational initiatives for children and annual visits of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and its youthful Ailey II. But at the heart of that success is something that Tyrone Aiken, the Friends’ executive […]

By Paul Horsley The challenge of Verdi’s La traviata is to present plausible characters and convincing emotional heat within the context of a famously, perhaps notoriously, contrived story line. This is a tall order even for the greatest opera companies, which have tended to rely on fabulous singing, high production values and Verdi’s durable if […]

By Paul Horsley The beauty of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, in its original literary version by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) and in its many retellings through the last century and a half, is that it actually tells two stories at once. The first is that of a very curious little girl who through a series […]

By Paul Horsley If you read Francesco Piave’s libretto for Verdi’s La traviata carefully, one startling notion jumps out at you: Violetta Valéry, the “courtesan” of the title role, whose profession is to entertain wealthy gentlemen in whatever fashion they desire, has despite all her savvy fallen in love for the first time. It’s something […]

By Paul Horsley [NOTE: For a full transcript of our interview with Cynthia, check back here next week at kcindependent.com.] When Cynthia Levin took the reins of the Unicorn Theatre in 1979, she had a specific vision: To produce plays that no one else was doing at the time, and to cultivate local talent to […]

By Paul Horsley Episcopalians and Roman Catholics have had their differences over the centuries, conflicts that have at times engulfed their musical establishments as well, but locally the month of August has long been an “era of good feelings” between the two downtown Cathedrals, thanks to a concert series that is held alternately in both […]

By Paul Horsley With several Grammy Awards to their name and an international reputation to uphold, Charles Bruffy and the 24-voice Kansas City Chorale certainly count as one of our city’s great success stories. The 2014-2015 season that begins this October will see an appearance by the international jazz and R&B singer Patti Austin; a […]

UPDATE: One more show added to Malcolm Grissom’s run, at 8 p.m. Saturday August 26th. By Paul Horsley Since its beginnings in 2004 the KC Fringe Festival, which continues to grow like Topsy each year, has prided itself on an incredibly wide range of offerings: from theater to dance, comedy to puppetry, burlesque to world […]

By Paul Horsley Live music was an essential part of period performances of Shakespeare’s plays, but not until this year has it become central to the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival’s free annual performances in Southmoreland Park. Their presentation of the rare The Winter’s Tale, which runs through July the 6th, incorporates three live musicians […]

By Paul Horsley Summers are increasingly busy times for music, theater and dance in Kansas City, but for nearly a quarter-century Summerfest has presented the most substantial summer offerings in classical music, by a long shot. It thrives for two main reasons: (1) top-drawer musicians, many from the Kansas City Symphony, who offer the best […]

By Paul Horsley Kansas City was once a sleepy place culturally during the summer, with a few notable exceptions. As the regular season began to overflow with events, that situation changed: KC Symphony members started playing chamber music, enterprising KC Ballet dancers began mini-festivals, the Fringe Festival took off, and theater companies began to offer […]

By Paul Horsley Sometimes it’s the things that accidental geniuses do “on the side,” to pay the bills, that we most remember them for. George Gershwin, like many gifted American composers of the early 20th century, desperately wanted to be remembered for his achievements in “serious” classical music, but he had a gift for tossing […]