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Film and the Arts

American Ballet Theater Perform "Swan Lake" at The Met

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 18 June 2025 13:50; Written by Jack Angstreich

Skylar Brandt and Herman Cornejo in Swan Lake.Photo: Rosalie O’Connor.

At Lincoln Center’s marvelous Metropolitan Opera House on the evening of Wednesday, June 11th, I was afforded the immense pleasure of seeing a superb presentation, one of the first of the exciting new season at American Ballet Theater, of its indelible production of Swan Lake, featuring the immortal score by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky—here admirably conducted by the veteran Ormsby Wilkins—and the glorious choreography of former Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie, after that of the legendary Marius Petipa as well as Lev Ivanov. The superior sets and attractive costumes were designed by Zack Brown, while the evocative and sometimes powerfully dramatic lighting is by Duane Schuler.

The primary role of Odette-Odile was stunningly danced with exemplary precision and grace by Skylar Brandt in a realization that sustains comparison with those of such luminaries of this company as Natalia Osipova and Gillian Murphy. Her astonishing partner as Prince Siegfried was the tremendous Herman Cornejo, one of the greatest dancers in the troupe, who was characteristically riveting. Duncan Lyle and Andrii Ishchuk were each compelling in the doubled role of von Rothbart, the evil sorcerer.

The secondary cast was also terrific and I will here single out the most striking of these, beginning with Léa Fleytoux, Yoon Jeung Seo and above all the extremely promising Jake Roxander (who was also Benno, the prince’s friend) who together magnificently executed the fabulous Pas de Trois from Act I. The dance of the Cygnettes at the lakeside in Act II—one of the unforgettable highlights of the ballet—was here performed by Lauren Bonfiglio, Camila Ferrera, Rachel Richardson and Hannah Marshall, while the equally exquisite dance of the Two Swans was forcefully executed by Paula Waski and Remy Young.

The leading roles in the splendid divertissements from Act III were also notably brilliant. Seo, Bonfiglio and Richardson again along with Zimmi Coker were the Hungarian, Spanish, Italian and Polish Princesses respectively. Marshall again and Roman Zhurbin enacted the Czardas. The two couples in the delightful Spanish Dance were Virginia Lensi and Joseph Markey and Scout Forsythe and Jose Sebastian. Finally, Carlos Gonzalez and Andrew Robare were the protagonists of the Neapolitan Dance.

The most significant players in non-dancing roles were Isadora Loyola as the Queen Mother and John Gardner as both Wolfgang, tutor to the prince, and the Master of Ceremonies in Act III. The stellar corps de ballet was not unexpectedly enthralling, if at moments maybe ever so slightly under-rehearsed.

The artists deservedly were rewarded with an enthusiastic ovation.

MET Orchestra Perform Strauss at Carnegie Hall

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 17 June 2025 13:30; Written by Jack Angstreich

Soprano Elza van den Heever with Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Photo by Chris Lee

At the marvelous Stern Auditorium, on the night of Thursday, June 12th, I had the exceptional pleasure to attend a superb concert, the first of two in six days presented by Carnegie Hall and featuring the extraordinary MET Orchestra under the brilliant direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

The event, consisting entirely of music by Richard Strauss, started enchantingly with a splendid reading of the wonderful Suite from his glorious opera, Der Rosenkavalier. In a useful note on the program by Harry Haskell, he describes the Suite as “unauthorized” and says that “conductor Artur Rodziński had premiered [it] in Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic in 1944.” He adds that “The published score credits Strauss as composer but fails to mention Rodziński’s presumed role as arranger.”

The terrific soprano Elza van den Heever then entered the stage to perform unforgettably a sterling selection of songs—all originally written for voice and piano and later orchestrated—beginning with one of the composer’s greatest and most popular, “Zueignung,” Op. 10, No. 1 from 1885, set to a poem by Hermann von Gilm, who also wrote the text for the third song on the program, “Allerseelen,” which is No. 8 from the same set and also one of Strauss’s most magnificent achievements in the form. Two of the songs—the second, “Wiegenlied,” Op. 41, No. 1, from 1899 and the final one, “Befreit,” Op. 39, No. 4, from 1898–have their sources in poems by a more famous author, Richard Dehmel, one of whose works inspired Arnold Schoenberg’s indelible Verklärte Nacht. (The latter of these two is referenced in Strauss’s gorgeous Ein Heldenleben that closed this concert.) The fourth song was another quite popular one, the 1894 “Cäcilie,” Op. 27, No. 2, to a text by Heinrich Hart.

Remarkable and rewarding as all this was, I found the second half of the evening even more impressive: an astonishing account of Ein Heldenleben. The composer wrote: “Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ is so little beloved of our conductors, and is on this account now only rarely performed, that to fulfill a pressing need I am composing a largish tone poem entitled Heldenleben, admittedly without a funeral march, but yet in E-flat, with lots of horns, which are always a yardstick of heroism.”

The work indeed begins heroically leading to the somewhat playful second movement, entitled “The Hero’s Adversaries,” which has caustic, scherzo-like sections largely for woodwinds. The third movement, “The Hero’s Companion,” is ludic too, even eccentric; dominated by the solo violin, it has some extremely beautiful, more lyrical, Romantic passages. The martial fourth movement, “The Hero’s Battlefield,” which opens with an offstage fanfare, is more turbulent. The annotator describes the penultimate movement, “The Hero’s Works of Peace”, as “a catalog of allusions to Strauss’s earlier tone poems and other music.” He adds, quoting Strauss:

In the final section, the composer speaks unmistakably in his own voice as the Hero, “overwhelmed with revulsion,” retires from the world, “now only wanting to live on his own reflections, desires, and the quiet, contemplative resolution of his very own personality.”

The artists deservedly were enthusiastically applauded.

Film Festival Roundup—2025 Tribeca Festival

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 17 June 2025 03:02; Written by Kevin Filipski

2025 Tribeca Festival

June 6-15, 2025

Various locations in Manhattan

Tribecafilm.com/festival

Once again, the annual Tribeca Festival premiered dozens of features, shorts and documentaries—the latter are what I concentrated on, and as always, the films made for interesting, informative and at times exasperating viewing.

Marlee Matlin—Not Alone Anymore (Kino Lorber, opens June 20)

In Shoshannah Stern’s perceptive portrait of the first deaf performer to be nominated for and win an Oscar—for best actress in Children of a Lesser God (1986)—Marlee Matlin (above) lays herself bare, as a deaf person, an actress, and an advocate for the hearing-impaired community. She is remarkably candid about her upbringing, her addictions, her volatile romantic and professional relationship with William Hurt, her uneasiness at becoming the global “face” of the deaf community after winning the Oscar and her satisfaction at the nearly four-decade career she’s had despite many saying she was a one trick pony. Stern also speaks with Aaron Sorkin (who wrote a part in The West Wing specifically for Matlin), Henry Winkler (a close friend for many years), Lauren Ridloff (who played the same role in Lesser God a few years ago and received a Tony nomination) and Randa Haines (who directed the Lesser God film), all of whom illuminate the subject as a performer and, even more importantly, as a person.

Backside

Everybody knows that Churchill Downs is where the Kentucky Derby has been run for more than 150 years, but director Raúl O. Paz Pastrana focuses his camera on those whom the millions of visitors to horseracing’s most famous race never see—or even knew about. It’s the many workers behind the scenes (at what is considered the track’s “backside”) who groom and clean and pamper and feed and ensure that the horses are ready for training or racing. Pastrana takes his cue from the great Frederick Wiseman for this fly-on-the-wall record of the people (several of whom are migrants) who get no glory but are indispensable in keeping a booming industry going.

The Inquisitor

Briskly directed by Angela Lynn Tucker, this is an edifying examination of Barbara Jordan (above, center), who was a political trailblazer in many ways, including her being the first Black Southern woman elected to Congress, in 1972, which also enabled her to become a clear and articulate voice of reason during the Nixon impeachment hearings. Tucker not only uses well-chosen archival clips of Jordan herself but also conducts new interviews with admirers from Dan Rather to Jasmine Crockett. Narrator Alfre Woodard provides Jordan’s strong, eloquent voice.

Natchez

The Mississippi town that still clings to the fantasy of antebellum—that the South before the Civil War was a beautiful and glorious place, ignoring that it was built on the backs of its enslaved people—is chronicled in Suzannah Herbert’s thoughtful documentary that contrasts the booming antebellum tourist business with how local residents and officials are dealing with what’s often been an unspoken history. In this look at a wide array of people on all sides of the divide, Herbert’s camera displays the observational muscle of a Frederick Wiseman, which is high praise indeed.

Re-Creation

Although not a documentary per se, Jim Sheridan and David Merriman’s tantalizing hybrid tackles a vexing criminal case: in 1996, a French woman was murdered in rural Ireland, and journalist Ian Bailey was a prime suspect who never faced an Irish jury. Playing off 12 Angry Men, the film posits a theoretical trial with evidence presented, actor Colm Meaney playing Bailey, Sheridan himself as the frustrated foreman and the amazing Dutch actress Vicky Krieps as the lone “not guilty” holdout who tries to convince the others that contradictory evidence and witnesses make a conviction anything but clear-cut.

Something Beautiful (Trafalgar Releasing/Sony Music)

In this “visual album” based on her just-released eponymously titled recording, Miley Cyrus (above) and codirectors Jacob Bixenman and Brendan Walter look for some variety in what are basically videos for all 13 songs, mixing straightforward performance clips with elaborately staged and costumed fantasy trips. I’m not a Miley fan, finding her songs repetitive mindless pop, but she does have a good singing voice and a real onscreen presence, so it’s too bad that this comes off as slight and self-indulgent instead of slight and fun.

Watch Over Us

In this devastating short, director Carlos Garcia de Dios follows Victoria Lopez (above), a Minnesota mother of four sentenced to a stupefying 88 months in jail for selling meth, who sees her kids before surrendering to the authorities and starting her jail term. (I’d love to know what sentence that judge would give to a white male frat boy for the same offense). Even though Lopez had her sentence commuted after a year in prison, the film still mortifyingly displays how our unfair justice system affects so many people, including family and friends of those convicted.

Off-Broadway Play Review—Donald Margulies’ “Lunar Eclipse”

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Friday, 13 June 2025 16:33; Written by Kevin Filipski

Lunar Eclipse

Written by Donald Margulies; directed by Kate Whoriskey

Performances through June 22, 2025

Second Stage Theater at Pershing Square Theater Center, 480 West 42nd Street, New York, NY

2st.com

Lisa Emery and Reed Birney in Lunar Eclipse (photo: Joan Marcus)

At his considerable best, playwright Donald Margulies has a rare gift for creating characters whose down-to-earth realism makes them iconic, as in Dinner with Friends and Sight Unseen. When he’s at his less than best—as in his latest play, Lunar Eclipse—Margulies is still deft with his dialogue, but there’s something lacking in plotting, exposition and insight.

Longtime married couple George and Em sit in a dark field on their midwestern farm in lawn chairs and discuss their long and winding lives together while watching a lunar eclipse unfold. Margulies rotely sketches their decades-long relationship, as difficulties with childbirth led to adopted children: daughter Mary Ann turned out fine and is living in Denver, while son Tim (“Poor Tim,” Em calls him) became a drug addict. George and Em themselves are similarly perfunctorily sketched out—he’s sullen and quick to anger while she is a consoler and optimist. Indeed, at one point, George berates her for being too cheerful (“the smiley-face act,” he derisively calls it).

That’s not to say that there aren’t couples like this, seeming opposites whose decades together were meticulously cultivated to form a more or less stable family. Unlike in his masterpiece Dinner with Friends, here Margulies’ psychologically acute analysis is less than penetrating. Sure, his crisp, tart dialogue can still reverberate, as in George’s touching monologue about weeping over the death of Belle, the latest in a long line of beloved family dogs.

But the conceit of the eclipse itself—each segment of the play is prefaced by a description of how far into the eclipse we are, e.g.,” Moon enters penumbra. Penumbral shadow appears”—lacks poetic power, especially when Em spells it out: “Everybody’s got their own sad and messy lives to deal with. What do they need to hear me belly-aching for? My sadness is not unique. It’s the oldest story there is: Eve lost a son. The trick is not to let it take over. Cast its shadow over everything else. Like an eclipse.”

Still, as enacted by Reed Birney and Lisa Emery, George and Em become vivid and immediate, even in a strained epilogue that shows them on their first date—a solar eclipse, naturally. Director Kate Whoriskey’s understated direction, on Walt Spangler’s marvelously evocative set, rarely lets their talk go slack—but Amith Chandrashaker’s often resourceful lighting doesn’t mirror the ongoing eclipse. George and Em’s intimate drama would benefit from such moodier shading, especially from its talented creator.

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