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July '23 Digital Week I

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Wednesday, 12 July 2023 22:45
Written by Kevin Filipski
In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 
Amanda
(Oscilloscope) 
Benedetta Porcaroli’s tremendously affecting performance as an aimless 25-year-old unable to come to grips with adulthood after moving back to her family in Naples—her friends are nonexistent, her romantic relationships are a mess and she has no direction in life—brightens writer-director Carolina Cavalli’s otherwise superficial narrative that that rarely gets deeper into the psychological weeds.
 
 
But Porcaroli is unafraid to be grating, irritating, obnoxious, hurtful and immature yet remains sympathetic as she burrows into the eponymous heroine’s psyche.
 
 
 
The Lesson 
(Bleecker Street)
Nobody can play as deliciously smarmy as Richard E. Grant, who dominates this slick black comedy as J.M. Sinclair, a superstar author who condescends to his teenage son Bertie’s new tutor Liam, an aspiring writer himself. As we see Sinclair’s literary thievery through Liam’s own jaundiced eyes, director Alice Troughton takes Alex MacKeith’s clever but overloaded script at face value, which takes some of the acid out of the nastiness.
 
 
In addition, Isobel Waller-Bridge’s jaunty classical score is too on the nose to be truly ironic. Still, Grant is always formidable and Julie Delpy gives depth to Hélène, Sinclair’s wife, while Stephen McMillan as Bertie and Daryl McCormack as Liam nicely sell the film’s final, obvious dramatic irony. 
 
 
 
The Man from Rome 
(Screen Media) 
Based on The Seville Communion by Spanish novelist Arturo Perez-Reverte, this effective but unoriginal thriller sends an Irish priest from the Vatican to Spain to investigate mysterious deaths at a local parish—it turns out there’s blackmail and corruption as well as murder.
 
 
Although director Sergio Dow paces the mystery well, and Richard Armitage gives a persuasively stoic performance as the collared Columbo—who has an improbable fling with Macarena, the gorgeous estranged wife (Amaia Salamanca) of a billionaire developer with designs on her beloved church—but at two hours it drags on too long, even though it intriguingly depicts an all-priest Vatican IT team.
 
 
 
Blu-ray Releases of the Week
Book Club—The Next Chapter 
(Universal/Focus Features)
Wherein our group of vivacious seniors decide, during the pandemic, to travel to Italy for a frolicsome vacation that culminates in a wedding that seemingly no one really wants, as this silly sequel gets by exclusively on the charm of leading ladies Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen.
 
 
Director Bill Holderman, who cowrote the script with Erin Simms, showcases the obvious tourist traps of Rome, Venice and Tuscany but the foolish attempts at cheap laughs too often make these smart, independent women the butt of jokes for no apparent reason. The film looks good on Blu; extras include several making-of featurettes.
 
 
 
Scream VI 
(Paramount/Spyglass Entertainment)
I’ve never been a fan of the Scream franchise, even the first one that was simply a hokey, jokey slasher movie, but the latest iteration—set in an obviously fake Manhattan that has none of the city’s teeming, screaming atmosphere, even in the big subway set piece—might be the least interesting yet.
 
 
Most damagingly, it does very little with Melissa Barberra and Jenna Ortega, a pair of winning actresses in the leads, instead lazily doing the tired slasher movie bit and again bringing back dullards from previous iterations. The film looks sharp and detailed on Blu-ray; extras include a filmmaker’s commentary and several featurettes about the film’s making and franchise’s legacy.
 
 
 
CD Release of the Week
Kurt Weill—Propheten 
(Capriccio)
German composer Kurt Weill (1900-50) wrote a six-hour opera, The Eternal Road, which premiered in 1937; it’s been only sporadically done since—the daunting subject matter (a Jewish community is trapped in a synagogue during a Nazi pogrom) and excessive length usually mean only a section or two is heard. That’s the case with Propheten (Prophets), heard here in its 1998 world-premiere concert recording by conductor Dennis Russell Davis, the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Weiner Jeunesse Chor and soloists.
 
 
Although there’s lovely music and strong vocal writing, the weight of such a serious enterprise seems to inhibit Weill, who only sporadically uses the melodic wit of his strongest music. Also included are Weill’s Four Whitman Songs for soloist and orchestra, sung by stentorian baritone Thomas Hampson.  

Chamber Music Society Kicks Off Summer Evenings Concert Series

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Tuesday, 11 July 2023 13:48
Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Cherylynn Tsushima

At the terrific Alice Tully Hall, on the evening of Sunday, July 9th, I had the pleasure to attend the splendid first of four Summer Evenings concerts presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

The program began auspiciously with a sterling account of Luigi Boccherini’s marvelous Quintet in E major, Op. 11, No. 5—a work worthy of Franz Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart—featuring violinists Aaron Boyd and Jennifer Frautschi, violist Matthew Lipman, and cellists Nicholas Canellakis and Inbal Segev. The opening movement is unexpectedly somber given its Amoroso marking, although it becomes more animated as it unfolds. The ensuing Allegro con spirito is ebullient with a few solemn inflections and the exceedingly celebrated Minuetto is ineffably charming, while the Rondeau finale is elegant but not lacking emotional intensity.

Boyd, Lipman and Canellakis returned to the stage for an accomplished reading of another extraordinary piece—one characteristic of the early period of the composer—Ludwig van Beethoven’s Trio in D major, Op. 9., No. 2. The initial Allegretto is passionate while the following Andante quasi allegretto is even more serious and the succeeding Menuetto is unsurprisingly lighter in tone. The closing Rondo is ultimately and triumphantly exultant.

The event concluded admirably with a committed performance of Alexander Glazunov’s striking Quintet in A major, Op. 39, the efflorescent Romanticism of which is subtly presaged in the Beethoven. The Allegro is lush in texture and theespritof the Scherzo is delightful, although it has a sober middle section; it precedes the more turbulent and inward Andante sostenuto. The Allegro moderato finale is inventive and melodious.

I look forward to the remainder of the series.

Ballet Classic "Giselle" Performed at Met Opera House

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Friday, 07 July 2023 13:33
Written by Jack Angstreich
Skylar Brandt and Herman Cornejo in Giselle. Photo: Rosalie O’Connor.
 
At the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center on the evening of Wednedsay, July 5th, I had the especial privilege to attend a thrilling performance of the American Ballet Theater production of the wonderful, perennially popular Giselle, “the oldest continually-performed ballet,” according to the company’s program note.

Giselle is set to a memorably tuneful score—excellently orchestrated by John Lanchbery and here expertly conducted by Charles Barker—by the distinguished nineteenth-century French composer, Adolphe Adam (who also wrote the Christmas carol known in English as “O Holy Night”). According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 

The idea for the ballet Giselle originated with French poet and novelist Théophile Gautier, who took an interest in German poet Heinrich Heine’s retelling of a Slavic legend concerning the wilis, ghostly spirits of girls who have died before their wedding day. Gautier imagined a version in which a girl betrayed by her beloved dies of a broken heart but returns as a spirit to save him from retribution by the vengeful wilis. Her merciful act saves her from becoming a wili herself.

b94a8882-7919-41ea-ade2-b6d2c1d00813The remarkable choreography is after that of Jean Coralli, Jules Perrot and that of the immortal Marius Petipa, in a solid staging by Kevin McKenzie, with attractive scenery by Gianni Quaranta, beautiful costumes by Anna Anni, and effective lighting by Jennifer Tipton. 

The performance featured an extraordinary cast led by Skylar Brandt in the title role—she was brilliant and is becoming one of the finest ballerinas in the company. Her partner, who is still in impeccable form as a dancer, was Herman Cornejo as Count Albrecht. Admirable too was Andrii Ishchuk as Hilarion, the Village Huntsman and outstanding among the primary cast was Chloe Misseldine—here replacing Zhong-Jing Fang—as Myrta. The secondary cast was also stellar: Zimmi Coker and Jake Roxander created an unusually strong impression in the Peasant Pas de Deux in Act I while the glorious Act II was magnificently adorned by Erica Lall as Moyna and Isadora Loyola as Zulma. The main non-dancing roles were played by Luis Ribagorda as Wilfred, the count’s squire; Susan Jones as Berthe, Giselle’s mother; Alexei Agoudine as the Prince of Courland; and Luciana Paris as Bathilde, the Prince’s daughter. The superb corps de ballet was frequently marvelous, if slightly under-rehearsed at some moments in the first act. 

The artists were rewarded with a very enthusiastic reception.

Musical Theater Review—“Cabaret” at Barrington Stage

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Thursday, 06 July 2023 22:32
Written by Kevin Filipski
Cabaret
Book by Joe Masteroff, from the play by John Van Druten and stories by Christopher Isherwood
Music by John Kander; lyrics by Fred Ebb
Directed by Alan Paul; choreographed by Katie Spelman
Performances through July 8, 2023
Boyd-Quinson Stage, 30 Union Street, Pittsfield, Massachusetts
barringtonstageco.org
 
Krysta Rodriguez, center, in Cabaret (photo: Daniel Rader)


The Barrington Stage production of Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret is, despite some provocative window dressing, a staging of this still disturbing, groundbreaking musical that’s close in spirit to the 1998 Sam Mendes restaging that took Broadway by storm. After I read the typically imperceptive and shrilly clever New York Times review, I was expecting an out-there interpretation (“OMG, a genderqueer Cabaret—run for your lives!”), but director Alan Paul has stayed pretty faithful to the book and songs, with the notable exception of “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” which is sung by a trio of non-binary and trans performers as part of the renamed Kit Kat Ensemble.
 
Paul’s decision to do away with the Kit Kat Girls further underlines the notion that the immorality and decadence of Weimer-era Berlin will soon be comprehensively stifled quite brutally by the thuggish Nazis. But aside from that—and the amusing squirming of some audience members pre-show and post-intermission as the ensemble wanders among the seats to flirt or dance with the paying customers—there’s nothing here that screams, “Look! We’re making Cabaret relevant to our time!” Paul doesn’t have to make obvious the parallels to today’s wannabe fascists as they viciously fight a more progressive society—it’s already there in the show.
 
Paul and his able choreographer, Katie Spelman, use the small stage—which features a terrific small orchestra, led by music director Angela Steiner—to their advantage, as the song and dance interludes and dramatic scenes rub against each other effectively and, often, almost inevitably.
 
As the proudly amoral heroine, club chanteuse Sally Bowles, the always wonderful Krysta Rodriguez turns on her natural charm—along with a beguiling, if erratic, British accent—to complement her lithe movements and powerhouse voice. Her stirringly emotional rendition of the title tune is the very definition of a showstopper; maybe Rodriguez will finally get the Broadway starring role she deserves if this production makes it to New York.
 
Other cast members are accomplished, at times even inspired, although Dan Amboyer’s portrayal of Cliff Bradshaw—the naïve American writer who falls in love with Sally after coming to Berlin to start a novel—is more lackadaisical than it should be, even for such a passive character. As Cliff’s spinster landlady Fräulein Schneider, Candy Buckley has a lovely but sad presence; as her paramour, the elderly Herr Schulz, Richard Kline gives a noble performance as a German Jew who can’t comprehend what the Nazis have in store for him.
 
The Emcee has become a touchstone role, not only because of Joel Grey’s sinister Tony- and Oscar-winning portrayal but also because of Alan Cumming’s flamboyant, Tony-winning reinterpretation in Mendes’ revival. Nik Alexander mischievously combines both of them in a slyly uninhibited, subtly menacing performance. That Alexander occasionally swallows his lines doesn’t mitigate his idiosyncratic stage presence, which is the ominous center of this Cabaret. 

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