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June '12 Digital Week IV

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Monday, 25 June 2012 05:00; Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

A Bag of Hammers

(MPI)

This indifferent comedy is another “who-cares” look at annoying people who act unlike anyone in the real world (at least I hope so, for our sake). They insult and cajole one another and other innocent people, but when the chips are down, director Brian Crano and co-writer Jake Sandvig desperately attempt to inject humanity to gain sympathy from viewers. However, I can’t see how any viewer cannot be left unmoved.

The lone interest comes from Rebecca Hall, who creates a lovely character with no help from Crano and Sandvig. There’s a first-rate hi-def transfer; the lone extra is a making-of featurette.

Eugene Onegin (Opus Arte)

and Lakme (Opera Australia)

A pair of 19^th century operatic masterpieces gets the hi-def treatment: Tchaikovsky’s greatest stage work Eugene Onegin and Hector Delibes’ lone hit Lakme. Onegin, from 2011 in Amsterdam, is hampered by director Stefan Herheim’s goofy concept, but the glorious music—conducted by Mariss Jansons—compensates.

Lakme—filmed at Opera Australia last year—is more traditionally exotic, in keeping with the work’s mysticism, and sung beautifully by Emma and Dominica Matthews, who sing a duet on the famous “Flower Song.” The operas look and sound splendid on Blu-ray.

My Afternoons with Margueritte

(Cohen Media Group)

At age 77 in 2010, director Jean Becker created this affecting portrait of enduring friendship in this sweetly sentimental tale of two lonely people—middle-aged, barely literate laborer and elderly but vigorous woman—who bond over the glories of discovering new worlds through reading.

As the mismatched pair, Gerard Depardieu (appropriately downtrodden) and Gisele Casadesus are wonderful, with a radiant assist by Maurane as Depardieu’s loving but confused girlfriend. The unassuming drama is matched by its subdued photography, which gets a first-rate hi-def transfer.

Nature: The White Lions

and Nova: Hunting the Elements

(PBS)

Another stunning PBS Nature program, Lions sympathetically chronicles the difficulties of two lionesses to survive in the wild with tell-tale white fur; Nova’s equally superb Elements provocatively shows the world of science harnessing elements from inert gold to malevolent phosphorus.

Both programs utilize hi-def visuals to their full: Lions’ superlative nature photography and Elements’ engrossing breakdown of minute particles.

Project X

(Warners)

I know I’m not the target audience for this empty-headed flick about high school losers whose popularity rises when one of them hosts a huge party while his parents are away. Is there a shred of redeeming value to a movie that simply shows brainless teens doing what brainless teens have done since time immemorial?

That hack director Todd Phillips produced this unwatchable mess is unsurprising; that several comely young women consented to take their clothes off for it is saddening: it’s a paycheck, I guess. Undoubtedly, Projects Y and Z are next. Extras comprise three featurettes with interviews.

Red Scorpion

(Synapse)

Dolph Lundgren became an action star in this mindless 1985 flick about a dirty rotten Commie who sees the light and helps defeat the pesky Russians (the same year he was as the ultimate Russian fighting machine in Rocky IV).

While the movie is negligible, the Blu-ray is excellent: a terrific new hi-def transfer, new interviews with Lundgren and make-up ace Tom Saviani, on-set footage and a behind-the-scenes featurette.

Seeking Justice

(Anchor Bay)

Old pro Roger Donaldson directed this flimsy thriller with welcome verve, despite its silly story about a mild-mannered teacher (Nicolas Cage, of all people) who consents to have his wife’s rapist be offed in exchange for “future payment,” which comes when he must kill someone he doesn’t know.

Cage is surprisingly subdued, January Jones (the wife) is gorgeous, and the action competently done; but it falls apart at the end. The Blu-ray image is fine; the lone extra is a making-of featurette.

Stone Temple Pilots: Alive in the Windy City

(Eagle Vision)

This 2010 reunion concert on the heels of the band’s lackluster eponymous CD shows off STP at its hard-rocking best, with Dean DeLeo’s charged guitar stylings, brother Robert’s booming bottom end on bass and Eric Kretz’s blistering drums. Vocalist Scott Weiland is agile physically—his non-stop movement is on display—and vocally, hitting every note and then some.

New tunes “Between the Lines” and “Huckleberry Crumble” stand alongside classics like “Big Empty,” Plush” and “Interstate Love Song,” which has one of the all-time great hooks. The hi-def image is good; a 15-minute interview is included.

DVDs of the Week

Attenberg

(Strand)

Athina Rachel Tsangari’s deadpan study of a young woman’s sexual inexperience gets much right about the terrifying world of adulthood.

But despite the artistry of her rigorous compositions and the strikingly natural performances by Ariane Labed in the lead and Evangelia Randou as her best friend, Tsangari’s film hits an artistic dead end after making its points early, then recycles them for 97 minutes to mute their power.

How Much Does That Building Weigh, Mr. Foster?

(First Run)

The cantankerously inventive British architect Norman Foster’s artsy profile by directors Norberto Lopez Amado and Carlos Carcas does the job in a succinct 80 minutes.

Many of Foster’s brilliantly original designs—like the Hearst Tower in midtown Manhattan and the stunning, towering Millau Viaduct in France—are shown with spectacular aerial photography, while we get to know what makes such a unique artist tick. (Shockingly, the DVD’s back cover notes that the movie is “honing,” not “homing,” in on Foster’s works.)

A Matter of Taste

(First Run)

Paul Liebrandt, wunderkind chef, is profiled in this entertaining documentary covering nearly a decade in the career of a temperamental genius whose goal is to get three stars from the NY Times for his first restaurant venture as a co-owner. Considering her film’s only 69 minutes, director Sally Rowe covers a lot of ground, interviewing Liebrandt, other chefs and even the Times’ reviewers William Grimes and Frank Bruni.

The result is a gastronomic feast that reveals the pressure these people put themselves under in such a rarefied world. Extras include additional chef interviews and two shorts.

CD of the Week

Dmitri Shostakovich: Orango

(Deutsche Grammophon)

Dmitri Shostakovich never finished his satirical opera Orango, only getting through the prologue. In Simon McBurney’s orchestration, it’s a daffy, derivative piece of fluff by one of the 20^th century’s Soviet masters. The 30 minutes of music are rarely original but always fun to listen to.

Both Orango and a compelling account of Shostakovich’s massive Fourth Symphony—written in the mid-‘30s but not premiered until 1961—are performed by the L.A. Philharmonic under conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Theater Roundup: Shanley in the Bronx, Shakespeare in the Park

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Friday, 22 June 2012 10:00; Written by Kevin Filipski

Storefront Church

Starring Bob Dishy, Giancarlo Esposito, Zach Grenier, Ron Cephas Jones, Jordan Lage, Tonya Pinkins

Written and directed by John Patrick Shanley

As You Like It

Starring Andre Braugher, Donna Lynne Champlin, Jon DeVries, Susannah Flood, David Furr, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Robert Joy, Oliver Platt, Lily Rabe, Will Rogers, Stephen Spinella

Written by William Shakespeare; directed by Daniel Sullivan

Storefront Church (photo: Kevin Thomas Garcia)

The final play in his “Church and State” trilogy which began with the masterly Doubt and brittle Defiance, John Patrick Shanley’s Storefront Church displays his virtues and vices in abundance. Notably, there’s Shanley’s uncanny ability to not only believably differentiate his characters from one another but allow them their dignity, whether it’s Bronx Borough President Donaldo Calderon or middle-aged neighborhood resident Jessie Cortez, losing her house to foreclosure.

They are just two of a half-dozen characters, all shot through with Shanley’s characteristic humanity. But that’s also where Shanley stumbles. He crams so many of their individual idiosyncrasies into a two-hour running time—along with other interests related to “Church and State” (both institutions interconnect more here than in the other plays)—that the drama is shortchanged.

Donaldo is asked by the intensely religious Jessie to help her and “secular Jew” husband Ethan Goldklang—whose opening-scene heart attack in the office of the local bank’s uncaring loan officer Reed Van Druyten greases the play’s creaky dramatic wheels—in their battle with the bank, but since Donaldo is also teaming with the bank’s slick CEO Tom Raidenberg on a brand new mall that will bring lots of minimum-wage jobs to a borough desperate for them following the 2008 financial meltdown, he feels there might be a conflict of interest to intervene on Jessie’s behalf.

Also as a favor to Jessie, Donaldo confronts Chester Kimmich, a Pentecostal minister from New Orleans living rent-free in a storefront that Jessie has a second mortgage on; spiritually paralyzed by Hurricane Katrina, Charles cannot bring himself to sermonize, so he hasn’t opened the storefront church whose collection money would help him pay his back rent to Jessie.

Eventually, all six characters come together in the title place one Sunday morning, and many of their secrets come out in characteristically revealing ways. Shanley (who also directs) is helped by an immaculate cast led by Giancarlo Esposito’s wounded, weary portrait of a believer and politician realizing that politics and community service may be impossible to reconcile.

If Storefront Church ends with a forced but wearily jubilant finale, there’s much to chew on from our most consistently intelligent playwright.

As You Like It (photo: Joan Marcus)

Right before intermission of Daniel Sullivan’s otherwise lackluster As You Like It are five of the most memorable minutes I’ve encountered in 25 years of attending free Shakespeare in Central Park performances. Although Stephen Spinella’s sing-song recitation of the great “Seven Ages of Man” speech is awkwardly spoken, Sullivan stages the physical action with a welcome awareness of the text and an understanding of Shakespeare’s awesome humanity.

We are in a world of genius for a few fleeting moments, but such gracefulness is missing from the rest of the production, whose Forest of Arden—despite the surrounding foliage of the Delacorte Theater’s environs—is supplemented by a massive wooden fort at stage center whose lone function is to obscure the trees making up the rest of set designer John Lee Beatty’s forest.

Despite the play being nonsensically set in the Wild West (which accommodates Steve Martin’s appealing bluegrass music performed by a group of musicians including the talented Tony Trischka on banjo and vocals), the big problem is that Sullivan misses the big picture to concentrate on individual scenes.

The many comic interludes, led by a jolly Oliver Platt as the clown Touchstone and the invaluable Jon DeVries as the old shepherd Corin, receive the evening’s biggest applause—especially when supplemented by hijinks not written by Shakespeare, always a touchstone for Central Park audiences—but the main plot’s cross-dressing and comic romance featuring our heroine Rosalind, her cousin Celia and paramour Orlando are treated lackadaisically.

David Furr makes an appealing Orlando and Renee Elise Goldsberry is a decent Celia, but the show’s biggest disappointment is the Rosalind of Lily Rabe, an actress whose strident, piercing voice and bulldozing manner are all wrong for Shakespeare’s greatest female creation. Compare the one-note Rabe to Rebecca Hall at BAM in 2005, whose Rosalind I still remember for an affecting, slightly gawky quality that beautifully brought out her vulnerability while in disguise as the boy Ganymede.

At BAM, Rosalind’s audience-pleasing epilogue was spoken by Hall with a winning combination of humility and good humor, while in the Park, Rabe hammily underlines every word to ensure all “get it.” Audiences may eat it up, but the sublime As You Like It should not be treated as a mere rewrite of the crude Comedy of Errors.

Storefront Church

Performances began May 16, 2012; opened June 11; closes June 24

Atlantic Theater Company, 336 West 20^th Street, New York, NY

http://atlantictheater.org

As You Like It

Previews began June 5, 2012; opened June 21; closes June 30

Delacorte Theatre, Central Park, New York, NY

http://shakespeareinthepark.org

The Songwriters Hall of Fame 2012 Induction Ceremony

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 19 June 2012 13:41; Written by Lloyd Carroll

Bob Seger Songwriters Credit GETTY resize Although it was created 17 years before the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame has never gotten the attention from the entertainment media and the public that it deserves.

Part of the problem is that the Songwriters Foundation has never gotten the funding to build a permanent home in a city (it’s currently a wing in LA’s Grammy Museum) the way Cleveland stepped up for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation.

It’s a shame because New York, with its rich music publishing and theatrical history would be a natural fit to pay tribute to the greatest tunesmiths in history.

One advantage that the Songwriters Hall of Fame has over its Rock & Roll counterpart is that it can honor composers from various musical genres. At the 43rd annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, held June 14, 2012, at the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan, nearly every form of popular music was represented.

The evening opened with Bob Seger, already a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, commemorating being honored by the SHOF with a performance of a relatively minor hit for him, “Turn The Page.” It would have been easy for him to sing any of his big hits such as “Night Moves,” “We’ve Got Tonight,” “Hollywood Nights” and the like, but “Turn The Page,” with its lyrics that strip away the perceived glamor of the road life of a rock musician on the road, was clearly autobiographical and downright personal for him.

Canadian troubadour Gordon Lightfoot still tours around the world at age 73 and although his voice, has frayed a bit from his 1970s hit-making days, he still sounds great. It’s not shocking that the snooty and arbitrary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has ignored Lightfoot.

But it is also surprising however that it has taken this long for the Songwriters Hall executive committee to honor this great storyteller whose works include: “The Early Morning Rain,” “Rainy Day People,” “Beautiful,” “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” “Carefree Highway,” and “Sundown” -- which was performed on this night by blues rocker Steve Miller.

Although it wasn’t his biggest hit, “If You Could Read My Mind,” with its irresistible string section and acoustic guitar interludes -- punctuated by Gordon’s ruminations over the regrets of a failed relationship -- was the record that put him on the map. Lightfoot performed the song that night with all of the freshness and enthusiasm that he did back in 1971.

Don Schlitz is not a household name for most pop music fans, and no, he is not related to the family that made Schlitz Beer. He is, however, highly respected in Nashville and understandably so.

Among the songs in his portfolio are hit songs for Randy Travis (“Forever and Ever, Amen” and “On The Other Hand”), the late Keith Whitley (“When You Say Nothing At All”) and Alabama (“Forty Hour Week”).

In terms of recognition, those aforementioned songs pale in comparison to “The Gambler,” a gigantic 1978 hit for Kenny Rogers who sang it again on this night.

Interestingly when I met Schlitz on a Manhattan street years ago he told me that he knew nothing about poker or any kind of card games. Indeed, a close lis

Constantine Maroulis Meat Loaf Resize Getty Larry Busacca

ten to the lyrics show that the poker terminology is merely a metaphor for the vicissitudes of life.

Just as Kenny Rogers came to show appreciation to the composer who gave him one of his signature hits, so did Marvin Lee Aday, better known to most as Meat Loaf, who came to honor Jim Steinman, the man behind his multi-platinum 1977 Bat Out Of Hell album. In his speech for Steinman, Meat Loaf talked about how his songs were all mini-plays and the lyrics were often tongue-in-cheek. “Fortunately our fans were in on the joke,” he said.

The late Yankees broadcaster Phil Rizzuto always claimed that he wasn’t in on the humor when he recorded a bit for that album that had a player trying to steal bases including home as a metaphor for a passionate evening. “He could go all the way!” said the Scooter in the song.I have a feeling that Rizzuto was protesting with a wink of the eye.

Steinman grew up in Hewlett and his over-the-top bombastic production made him rock’s answer to the German classical composer Richard Wagner. While he is most identified with Meat Loaf, Steinman composed hits for Celine Dion (“It’s All Coming Back To Me”), Barry Manilow (“Read ‘Em And Weep”), Bonnie Tyler (“Total Eclipse Of The Heart”), and Air Supply (“Making Love Out Of Nothing At All”).

Broadway was not forgotten as the composing tandem of Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones (not the Welsh singer) were honored for their contributions to musical theater. They are responsible for the longest running play in showbiz history -- The Fantasticks.

Cheyenne Jackson, one of the hottest actors working in New York today sang “Try To Remember” whose lyric of “without the hurt, the heart is hollow,” is, for my money, one of the best one-line philosophical observations ever put into a song. Jackson did not put the passion that the late Jerry Orbach or the Brothers Four, who had a pop hit with it did, but he got the job done.

But that's what made this evening, and the annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony such an important event -- because it gives all of us a chance to remember who were the core creators of some of the greatest songs we've ever heard.

The 43rd annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony
June 14, 2012
the Marriott Marquis
Manhattan

June '12 Digital Week III

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Monday, 18 June 2012 01:00; Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

Demoted

(Anchor Bay)

Since the guys behind American Pie are behind Demoted, it’s no surprise that the new movie fails to reach that film’s gross-out heights of humor. Not coincidentally, it also fails to find any cleverness in its work situations as did Office Space. Do we really need to see a naked Robert Klein cavorting with strippers?

The cast is definitely able, but the material is just not there, and comedic desperation sets in early and never leaves. At least there’s a decent hi-def transfer; no extras.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

(Sony)

Since Nicolas Cage has pretty much surrendered his career to bizarre script choices, this sequel actually seems less crazy than it should be. The pluses of this ludicrously plotted movie are that directors Neveldine/ Taylor throw caution to the wind and concentrate on superb set pieces that make one forget—at least momentarily—the lunacy of what’s happening onscreen.

Unfortunately, the ending promises another sequel, which is definitely unnecessary. The overly digitized action has a less-than-warm look on Blu-ray; extras include featurettes and interviews.

The Gold Rush

(Criterion)

One of Charlie Chaplin’s immortal comedies is as humane and affecting as his other classics The Circus, Modern Times and City Lights. The set pieces—the dance of the rolls, the Tramp eating his shoe—are as ingenious as ever; the only quibble is that Chaplin’s inferior, re-edited 1942 talkie version is now considered definite.

Luckily, The Criterion Collection includes both versions on this invaluable release, which are quite stupendous-looking on Blu-ray; extras include Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance commentary, interviews with Vance and historian Kevin Brownlow about restoring the 1925 version; and a 2002 featurette about the film’s importance and legacy.

In Darkness

(Sony)

Director Agnieszka Holland pulls few punches in her real-life account of WWII Jewish refugees hiding in sewers under the Polish town of Lvov and a sewer worker keeping them from the Nazis. The film unflinchingly shows the awful conditions under which these desperate people survived; laced with bitter humor—especially its depiction of an unsaintly hero (a marvelous Robert Więckiewicz)—it also allows characters their humanity.

The film is splendidly monochromatic (thanks to Joanta Dylewska’s photography, Michael Czarcecki’s editing and Erwin Prib’s production design); on Blu-ray, this brilliantly muted color scheme remains illuminated. Extras include a Holland interview and discussion between Holland and one of the real-life survivors.

Lina Wertmuller Collection: The Seduction of Mimi, Love and Anarchy, All Screwed Up

(Kino Classics)

It’s hard to believe, but in the mid-‘70s, Italian director Lina Wertmuller was considered among the world’s great filmmakers, culminating in her being the first woman nominated for a Best Director Oscar for her 1976 masterpiece, Seven Beauties. Too bad that brilliant, one-of-a-kind classic isn’t in this set (neither is her intelligent battle of the sexes comedy, 1975’s Swept Away…), but these three films give a good overview of this gifted artist’s singularly feminist point of view.

The Seduction of Mimi (1972) and Love and Anarchy (1973)—starring her favorite screen couple, the extraordinary versatile Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato—are superior, blackly comic dramas; 1974’s All Screwed Up is much less interesting but still a worthy comedy. All three movies, despite less-than-optimal materials, have authentically film-like grain; unfortunately, no extras.

Machine Gun Preacher

(Fox)

Gerard Butler’s committed portrayal of Sam Childers, a biker and criminal who becomes a preacher selflessly helping children in the dangerous areas of Sudan is reason enough to see Marc Forster’s compelling if preachy melodrama based on a true story. Accomplished turns by Michelle Monaghan (wife) and Michael Shannon (friend) back up Butler’s first-rate star turn.

On Blu-ray, the movie looks stunning, particularly the African sequences; extras include a Forster interview, making-of featurette and video of Chris Cornell’s closing-credits song, “The Seeker.”

Meatballs

(Lionsgate)

Bill Murray’s film debut, this cornball 1979 comedy was shot as he was making it big on Saturday Night Live. Ivan Reitman’s sketchy humor shows throughout the goofy summer camp story, while Murray does what he can: but even he hadn’t fully formed his onscreen persona, so the movie is heavy-going even for his biggest fans.

The Blu-ray transfer, while soft, has a decent amount of grain; the lone extra is Reitman and writer Dan Goldberg’s commentary.

Sherlock Holmes:
A Game of Shadows

(Warners)

Guy Ritchie’s redundant sequel to his unnecessary—but profitable—reboot of the British detective franchise consolidates Holmes as a superhero, moving so far from whom Arthur Conan Doyle created and the rest of us envisioned that it’s no use getting upset over such a cynical film series this is becoming.

Robert Downey and Jude Law keep their dignity, and it’s fun to see Noomi Rapace and Rachel McAdams, however ill-used; but Ritchie’s routine action sequences kill his stars’ momentum. The Blu-ray image is excellent; extras are Downey’s video commentary and on-set featurettes.

Vec Makropulos/The Makropulos Affair

(Unitel Classica)

Leos Janacek’s masterly opera is a weird sci-fi tale about 300-year-old Emilia Marty—one of opera’s great soprano roles, here superbly enacted and sung by German soprano Angela Denoke—nearing the end of what should have been immortality. The knotty but affecting music is dramatically played by the Vienna Philharmonic under Esa-Pekka Salonen’s graceful baton.

But Christoph Marthaler’s 2011 Salzburg staging pointlessly adds to Janacek’s terse libretto, bloating its taut structure. Still, Denoke, Salonen and Janacek ultimately triumph. The hi-def transfer gives added visual definition, while surround sound gives Janacek’s extraordinary music the breathing space it deserves.

DVDs of the Week

Desire

(Strand)

This French soft-core feature has naked bodies and body parts galore: but when it comes to relationships, the clinical filmmaking is anything but triumphant. Laurent Bouhnik’s film attempts to explore the active sexuality of young men and—especially—women, but since he’s a trite psychological director, there’s lots of nudity and simulated sex but little else.

Of course, the cast is terrifically attractive—particularly leads Déborah Révy and Helene Zimmer—but they don’t get to do much other than shed their clothes and inhibitions: the characters themselves remain wooden.

Don’t Go in the Woods

(Tribeca)

What might have been a clever slasher movie parody instead is, in novice director Vincent D’Onofrio’s hands, lumbering and obvious. A rock band goes to the woods to write new material—we hear their new songs in between being terrorized by a killer—and that’s about it. At 83 minutes, the movie is barely credulous, and Sam Bisbee’s songs are derivative and humorless, the opposite of what’s needed to make this a memorable parody.

The young cast seems camera-shy, and D’Onofrio doesn’t distinguish himself behind the camera. Extras include a D’Onofrio interview and making-of featurette.

Queen of Hearts

(Film Movement)

This relentlessly cutesy rom-com-cum-musical is the brainchild of writer-director-star Julie Donzelli, a capable actress but less than thrilling filmmaker. She also cast her-then boyfriend, the lumpish actor Jeremie Elkaim—playing not one but four of the heroine’s boyfriends—and none of the performers is able to carry off this subtle feat very well, and the film soon turns leaden instead of whimsical, and fey rather than charming.

The bonus short, Luis and Marta Work Together, made in the United Kingdom, is in Portuguese.

CDs of the Week

Alfredo Casella:
Orchestral Works

(Chandos)

Another unsung 20^th century Italian composer (alongside Lidebrando Pizzetti and Luigi Dellapiccola), Alfredo Casella was a master at atmospheric, colorful orchestral works, as this superlative disc—wonderfully performed by the BBC Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda—shows.

The premiere recording of the solidly tuneful Concerto for Orchestra leads things off, followed by a piano concerto in all but name, A note alta, with scintillating soloist Martin Rosoce. Rounding out this satisfying foray into Casella’s music are two series of Symphonic Fragments from 'La donna serpent,' a Casella opera.

Dead Man Walking

(Virgin Classics)

Jake Heggie’s first opera, which premiered in San Francisco in 2000, receives an emotional recording by Houston Grand Opera from 2011. Based on Sister Helen Prejean’s book (adapted by Tim Robbins for his 1995 Oscar-winning film), Heggie’s opera adroitly uses spirituals, gospel numbers and other American musical genres.

With a formidable cast led by Joyce DiDonato as Prejean and Philip Cutlip as death-row inmate Joseph De Rocher, the tragic work—ably conducted by Patrick Summers—makes its case as a top American opera of the past 20 years.

Reviews

June '12 Digital Week IV

Theater Roundup: Shanley in the Bronx, Shakespeare in the Park

The Songwriters Hall of Fame 2012 Induction Ceremony

June '12 Digital Week III

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