Paris in the 12th century was a hotbed of student unrest, corruption and greed, and lively political discourse – and it saw a ferment of artistic, literary and musical creativity the likes of which the Western world has rarely witnessed. Within the walled Notre Dame Cathedral complex on the city’s Ile de la Cité lived hundreds […]

Marc Wolf’s one-man play Another American: Asking and Telling is not just about the American military’s bizarre and soon-to-be-defunct “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, it addresses the whole history of the armed forces’ harsh and often cruel treatment of gays and lesbians. Therefore the recent repeal of the policy – an event that could easily have kicked the […]

Violinist Joshua Bell delighted a sold-out Folly Theater audience on January the 22nd with his signature earthy-sweet tone and lovely, long-breathed phrasing. This generous Harriman-Jewell Series recital included three meaty masterpieces of 19th-century Romanticism, and Josh tackled all three with aplomb. Brahms’ Sonata No. 2 began a bit perfunctorily but built momentum. The Andante tranquillo was […]

The Kansas City Symphony’s first season in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts looks auspicious indeed, with Mahler’s Second Symphony, Beethoven’s Ninth, Brahms’ German Requiem and commissions from composers Chen Yi, Stephen Hartke and Daniel Kellogg. Performers include former Cleveland Orchestra music director Christoph von Dohnanyi, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Joshua Bell, pianists Emanuel Axand Yefim Bronfman and Our Town native and Metropolitan star mezzo-soprano Joyce […]

Of all the local organizations who will be presenting for the first time this fall in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, none will be more thrilled to “stretch its legs” than the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. After decades of performing in the cramped, moldy Lyric Theatre (among other venues), the company has […]

Joyce DiDonato, who grew up in Prairie Village, is fast on the way to becoming the world’s greatest living mezzo-soprano. In anticipation of her February 13th recital here on the Harriman-Jewell Series, we asked what she’s up to these days. She was entrenched in a production at Houston Grand Opera — and looking forward to two Metropolitan […]

Sometimes the best way to deal with the horrors of war is to break into song. Yes war is ghastly, but it is also rife with absurdities that often cry out for satire, and for the lighter touch that a song can bring. Oh, What a Lovely War! – whose very title cues us into its sardonic […]

The Metropolitan Opera’s Nixon in China rides on powerful performances and a meticulous, lavishly outfitted production. Through the miracle of HD, I was able to see the February 12thperformance live at the AMC Town Center multiplex, along with a sizable handful of other opera buffs. John Adams, the work’s composer, conducted the production, and of course he […]

One of the specialties of the Harriman-Jewell Series has been to present recital debuts—either world or U.S. debuts—of budding young opera stars. On March 5th at the Folly the headline-grabbing young American tenor Stephen Costello will present the 20th such debut, following in a distinguished line that has included Luciano Pavarotti, June Anderson, Carol Vaness, Ben Heppner, Sergei Leiferkus, Salvatore Licitra, […]

How does one pay suitable homage to Henry Fogel, arts visionary, longtime orchestra executive, and current dean and distinguished professor of the arts at Roosevelt University? For the League of American Orchestras, which Henry led from 2003 to 2008, the best way to honor the man who has fought tirelessly for the continued importance of classical music […]

When we listen to Bach’s keyboard music today, do we hear the same thing he did 300 years ago? It’s the kind of question that spurs musicians and lay music-lovers alike to ponder and explore historical practices. For example: Anyone who took a music history class in the last century was probably taught that Bach […]

Evan Luskin, who joined the Lyric Opera of Kansas City in 1986 and has  been its general director since 1998, announced on March 15th that he would retire at the end of the 2011-2012 season, the company’s  first year in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Luskin, who led the Lyric from a small regional company […]

Composers have long delighted in creating elaborate narrative “programs” for their instrumental works, then instructing us not to rely on the programs too much, or even asking us to ignore them altogether. At issue is a tension over whether a piece conceived programmatically can also stand on its own as “pure” music. Avner Dorman’s new Piano Concerto […]

Can one woman change the direction of a culture? We all know the answer is yes, but it’s still gratifying to see it when it happens. Among her multifarious other accomplishments Valerie Naranjo —a native of Colorado who has played with the Saturday Night Live band and for the Broadway hit The Lion King — is credited with having helped […]

It’s not often that a 12-minute piece by a living American composer proves to be the musical highlight of a two-hour concert of classical favorites. Usually the “modern” piece is that cacophonous thing that you grin and bear to get through to the good stuff. But at Friday’s season-opening concert by the Kansas City Symphony, […]

Choreographer David Parsons’ earnest new piece Remember Me takes as its ambition to do Jesus Christ Superstar and Movin’ Out one better, by creating not just rock-opera or rock-ballet but rock-opera-ballet. Its conceit seems reasonable enough: to tell a love story through dance in collaboration with singers of the East Village Opera Company, a group that in recent years has achieved fame/notoriety for creating big-boned […]

Are you as tired as I am of country singers and demagogues telling you what it is that makes America great? Freedom, family values, guns, pickup trucks. Choreographer Paul Taylor embodies, as much as any American I know, the values that have made this country strong:  At 79, he still works like the devil every day, using […]

Octarium continues to refine its sonority and musical profile, and its distinguished concert on November 14 and 15, Modern Masters, showed that the group is gaining heft with leading choral composers around the country as well. The program included two world premieres and marked the release of a CD by the same title containing the music performed […]

If you want to know what the six youngsters playing the lead parts in the Kansas City Ballet’s The Nutcracker think about what they do, just ask them. Not only can they pirouette, plié and jeté, these boys and girls aged 9 to 14 can also talk about dance with clarity, thoughtfulness and no small amount of humor. We recently sat […]

If you are looking for just one holiday event to attend, the Kansas City Ballet’s The Nutcracker might not be the most inexpensive offering in town, but it’s probably the most solidly satisfying aesthetically. With Balanchine-inspired choreography by late artistic director Todd Bolender and delicious scenic and costume design by veteran Hollywood designer Robert Fletcher, it’s one of the […]

The Kansas City Symphony has an intriguing array of soloists lined up for the spring, from superstars to newcomers, and the first one I’m looking forward to is Benedetto Lupo, a marvelous Italian pianist with a substantial European career who only recently has begun to attract due notice on these shores. Odd, considering that his career […]