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December '12 Digital Week IV

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Sunday, 23 December 2012 05:00
Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Decasia
(Icarus)
Director Bill Morrison, whose The Miners’ Hymnswas a memorably unusual documentary, made this formally rigorous 2002 feature.

Another intriguing film, it uses old, “decaying” footage (hence the punning title) that’s unfortunately married to a monotonous Michael Gordon score, which makes it problematic despite its uniqueness. The Blu-ray image is good; the lone extra is Morrison’s 2004 short, Light Is Calling.

Ice Age—Continental Drift
(Fox)
The fourth Ice Agefeature is proof of diminishing returns, although its target audience—kids and undiscriminating adults—won’t notice, despite a thin story and labored jokes: mammoth Manny, sloth Sid and tiger Diego find themselves trapped on a floating iceberg.

Witty visuals like the opening sequence (which should be a short of its own) and huffing and puffing by Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Ray Romano, Jennifer Lopez and Queen Latifah (among other voices) can’t compensate for comic flimsiness. The Blu-ray image is impeccable; extras include deleted scenes and interactive viewing mode.

Manufactured Landscapes
(Zeitgeist)
Jennifer Baichwal’s documentary, stunningly photographed by Peter Mettler, is ostensibly a records of the massive photographs that artist Edward Burtynsky takes of what are called “manufactured landscapes”—specifically, dams, mines and piles of debris.

But as Baichwal follows Burtynsky through China, she also creates an illuminating portrait of the devastating effects of a massive industrial revolution. The amazing clarity of the Blu-ray image is made for this visual feast; extras include 30 minutes of deleted scenes and interviews with Baichwal, Burtynsky and Mettler.

Pelleas et Melisande
(Arthaus Musik)
Claude Debussy’s impressionistic masterpiece is the ultimate tragic opera, and with exemplary lead singers—here, American Rodney Gilfry and Spanish Isabel Rey—we’re halfway there.

Conductor Franz Welser-Most beautifully conducts the Zurich Opera House Orchestra and Chorus, adroitly spinning Debussy’s gossamer musical web. But Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s misguided direction horribly butchers such an idealized vision, proving that bad ideas beget bad stagings. The Blu-ray image and sound are tremendous.

Red Hook Summer
(Image)
In his most absorbing film in years, Spike Lee returns to the neighborhood of She’s Gotta Have Itto explore how its residents are surviving in a part of New York that’s had many changes, zeroing in on a young Atlanta boy visiting his granddad.

Although overlong with too many characters and subplots and no ending, it’s Lee’s most pointed character study—and Bruce Hornsby’s beguiling piano score is a genuine plus. The fine cast includes actors from She’s Gotta Have It doing their own thing. The Blu-ray image is stellar; extras comprise Lee’s commentary, on-set featurette and music video.

10 Years
(Anchor Bay)
This routine multi-character drama plays out on the day of a high school reunion, as the usual assortment of loners, losers, jocks and brainiacs converge once again on the scenes of their teenage crimes.

Making Jamie Linden’s movie tolerable is an attractive cast: Channing Tatum and real-life wife Jenna Dewan Tatum, Rosario Dawson, Ari Graynor, Lily Collins and Max Minghella turn these stereotypes into interesting people. The hi-def image is first-rate; deleted scenes are the lone extra.

Total Recall
(Sony)
This overstuffed remake of the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle, directed by Len Wiseman, steals from the dank, dark visuals of Blade Runner and Alien 3.

Of course, Wiseman isn’t Ridley Scott or David Fincher, so his movie has a clunkiness that’s especially noticeable in the 130-minute unrated version. Colin Farrell is a decent hero; Jessica Biel and Kate Beckinsale (the real-life Mrs. Wiseman), are fun action heroines. The Blu-ray image is good; extras are featurettes, director commentary and gag reel.

Trouble with the Curve
(Warner Bros)
Clint Eastwood trots out his crabby old-man number as an aging baseball scout who reluctantly accepts help from his daughter, who’s equally reluctant to leave a cushy job for life on the road—until she falls for an up-and-coming scout.

Eastwood is amusing and Amy Adams is delightful, but eternal lightweight Justin Timberlake fatally damages the romantic subplot. Writer Randy Brown and director Robert Lorenz show little, despite mentor Eastwood’s backing. The Blu-ray image is good; two featurettes are the extras.

DVDs of the Week
Rehearsal for a Sicilian Tragedy
and YERT (First Run)
These documentaries chronicle specific cultures that will open eyes to their evocations of history, performance and the green movement.

Rehearsal follows John Turturro’s visit to Sicily (his homeland on his mother’s side) as he learns about the lost art of puppetry with Mimmo Cuticchio, while YERT (which stands for “Your Environmental Road Trip) shows a group traveling through all 50 states for a year recycling their garbage. Both films introduce viewers to “characters” in the truest sense, presenting them without condescension but a shared humanity and amusement at our self-inflicted wounds.

Rodion Shchedrin—A Russian Composer
(Arthaus Musik)
In this thoughtful documentary about Russia’s most notable living composer, he and musician colleagues discuss his career, music and friendship with one of the 20thcentury’s greatest composers—Dmitri Shostokovich.

Interestingly, only Russian conductor Valery Gergiev speaks in English: the rest range from speaking Russian (Shchedrin) to German (Mariss Jansons, Lorin Maazel). In addition to the enlightening doc, there are two full-length bonuses: an hour-long interview with Shchedrin and an 85-minute all-Shchedrin concert in Moscow on his 75th birthday in 2007.

The Simpsons—Season 15
(Fox)
This was another season in decline for what was one of the funniest shows on television—but despite that, The Simpsonsin decline was better than other shows at their peak.

Included in this 22-episode season boxed set are such classics as Treehouse of Horror XIV; celebrity guest voices range from Jerry Lewis, Tony Blair and Jackie Mason to the Olsen twins and Mr. T. Extras include Matt Groening intro, commentaries on every episode, deleted scenes and featurettes.

CDs of the Week
Elgar—The Starlight Express
(Chandos)
Sir Edward Elgar is not one of my favorite British composers—I prefer Vaughan Williams, Bax, Bliss, Rubbra, Arnold and of course Britten by far—and his incidental music and songs for a 1916 children’s play encapsulates why: it’s weighted down by Elgar’s proficient but uninspired harmonies and melodies.

There are few thrilling moments as the work meanders along, which might work onstage as one watches the play; just listening gets quickly tiresome. The vocal soloists don’t get a chance to impress, Simon Callow’s narration provides needed color, and Sir Andrew Davis adeptly conducts the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Zelenski/Zarebski—Chamber Music
(Hyperion)

These rarely known chamber works by these late 19thcentury Polish composers, while typically Romantic, have an original quality that distinguishes them individually.

Juliusz Zarebski’s Piano Quintet displays a freshness and melodic brilliance that makes one wonder what he might have achieved if he hadn’t died of TB at age 31 in 1885; Wladyslaw Zelenski’s quartet unveils its composer’s profoundly lyric sensibility, from its folk-tune opening to its rousing flourish at its finale.

NYC Theater Roundup: 'Golden Boy' On Broadway; 'Great God Pan' Off Broadway

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Thursday, 20 December 2012 15:00
Written by Kevin Filipski

Golden Boy

Written by Clifford Odets; directed by Bartlett Sher
Performances through January 20, 2013

The Great God Pan

Written by Amy Herzog; directed by Carolyn Cantor

Performances through January 13, 2013

Strahovski, Numrich in Golden Boy (photo: Paul Kolnik)

It’s not easy to make a creaky theatrical piece an edge-of-your-seat spellbinder. But that’s what director Bartlett Sher has done with Golden Boy, Clifford Odets’ tragic melodrama that, in this scorching 75th anniversary production (in the theater it premiered at), feels more urgent than anything on or off Broadway.

Odets’ play concerns boxing phenom Joe Bonaparte, an immigrant kid who decides to fight instead of following his artistic temperament to play the violin. Despite the play’s hokiness, there’s humor, tension, romance and tragedy galore, and its characters are wise-cracking, gritty, tough New Yorkers (with one from New Jersey) souls who lead a willing audience through a familiar but absorbing story for three hours.
Sher smartly plays it straight: by avoiding irony or adding a contemporary feel, this production never condescends to the play, taking its plot holes, dated dialogue and near-caricatures at face value. That extends to the brilliant production design: Michael Yeargan’s sets, Catherine Zuber’s costumes and Donald Holder’s lighting create an onstage world in which everyone’s blood, sweat and tears are deeply felt.
Of course, none of this would work without a phenomenal cast, and Sher’s excellent ensemble has not one weak link among its 19 performers. Even small parts, like local sportswriters and rival boxers, are acutely etched, as are juicy supporting roles like Joe’s sister Anna (an appropriately frumpy Dagmara Dominczyk) or talkative neighbor Mr. Carp (a sly Jonathan Hadary).

If Tony Shaloub, as Joe’s immigrant father, overdoes his “Eye-talian” accent, he also has profound moments of quiet subtlety toward the end; likewise, Anthony Crivello’s Eddie Fuselli—the mobster promoter who buys a piece of Joe on his way up—begins as an unbearable Little Italy stereotype, then shrewdly reins it in as the show progresses.

The always reliable Danny Burstein nails the essence of Joe’s loyal trainer Tokio, and Danny Mastrogiorgio displays remarkable restraint in what could have been showiness as manager Tom Moody, who reluctantly takes Joe on.

Seth Numrich’s Joe perfectly blends bravado and vulnerability, especially in his intimate scenes with Yvonne Strahovski, a superb Australian actress who, in her Broadway debut, takes the stock part of Lorna, Tom Moody’s secretary/mistress from New Joisey, and invests her with so much emotional intensity that she almost steals the play from Odets’ conflicted protagonist.

Strong, Goldberg in Pan (photo: Joan Marcus)
Amy Herzog’s latest play, after her overrated After the Revolution and 4000 Miles, again provides little illumination on an interesting theme: in the case of The Great God Pan, it’s the persistence of memory—or forgetting.

Jamie, a 30ish blogger, meets with Frank, a childhood friend he hasn’t seen in years, who confesses that his own father sexually abused him and asks Jamie if he remembers anything that might bolster the criminal case against his dad. Jamie initially demurs, but slowly discovers more about what may have happened to him when he was a child—talking to his sympathetic girlfriend Paige, visiting his parents and the old lady who was his and Frank’s babysitter—but despite circumstantial evidence that something might have happened, he can’t (or won’t) remember.

Herzog tries to keep her characters—and the audience—off-balance. As the possible evidence mounts, Jamie slowly realizes he’s always erased inconvenient memories, but Herzog merely checks off what’s on Jamie’s not-to-do list with little urgency or drama. He didn’t tell his parents when his dog died, he’s cagey about his new job, he bristles when Paige brings up his sexual inadequacies, and he even begs her to allow him a week to think when she announces her pregnancy.
None of this is particularly insightful, which Herzog seems to sense, so she fleshes out her play with peripheral characters. She drags in Polly, the former babysitter, merely so that a wisecracking octogenarian in a wheelchair can garner laughs—and bring up the play’s title, which comes from an Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem which Polly recited to the boys.

Herzog also includes two dramatically deadly scenes in which Paige—an ex-dancer whose injury ended her career—in her new role as therapist deals with an anorexic teenage girl; they feel like forced attempts to draw a parallel to Jamie’s own emotional baggage.

Carolyn Cantor’s straightforward staging isn’t helped by Mark Wendland’s foliage-laden set, which represents the woods where the boys played while Polly watched them both naturally and symbolically, with neither particularly incisive. And the abruptness of Herzog’s shaggy-dog non-ending—the play should have begun where its author stops—does the director no favors dramatically.
Finally, Cantor’s talented cast cannot overcome these characters’ flimsiness. Jeremy Strong does little more but mope as Jaime, while Phyllis Goldberg’s Paige, despite the actress’s natural appeal, remains a cipher. There’s one very strong scene, a small disagreement between Jaime and Paige that plausibly erupts into a battle royale in short order: but it only throws into sharp relief the muddiness and vagueness of the rest.
Golden Boy

Belasco Theatre, 111 West 44thStreet, New York, NY

The Great God Pan

Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42ndStreet, New York, NY

Film Review: "The Hobbit" Stretches Too Little Too Far

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Tuesday, 18 December 2012 20:45
Written by Matt Oakes

The Hobbit: An Unexpected JourneyThe Hobbit- An Unexpected Journey 74
Directed by Peter Jackson
Starring Martin Freeman, Ian McKellan, Richard Armitage, Andy Serkis, James Nesbitt, Ken Stott, Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Elijah Wood

With The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, director Peter Jackson has bitten off more than he can chew. Jackson has to reinvest his audience with a new and somewhat minor quest while introducing an entirely novel and risky technological advancement.

The Hobbit details the journey of hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and a company of dwarves led by warrior prince Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) as they embark towards the conquered dwarf palace carved into the Misty Mountains to reclaim a vast treasure stolen by the malevolent dragon, Smaug. The travelers encounter one misplaced affair after another and between the orcs, wargs, mountain trolls, storm giants, goblins, a mysterious necromancer and disapproving elves, the tale feels overstuffed and a little inorganic.

With so much going on, it sometimes becomes languid and monotonous but the visual effects, character and set design, and lavish costumes create a stunning backdrop for the tale to unfold which is even more pronounced when seen in high-frame rate 3D.  

The advent of high frame rate -- 48 frames per second (FPS) -- technology came on the heels of complaints that 3D films shot at the industry standard (24 FPS) are shutter strobed when the camera is panning, particularly during action sequences. But do the consequences of higher frame rates outweigh the positives?  

The answer is… kind of. 48 FPS presents a hyperrealism that makes camera adjustments completely unnoticeable but is distracting to the inaugural eye and, at times, uncomfortably jarring.

In scenes where characters are talking, or more notably, writing, their gestures seem unnaturally accelerated and physically inconsistent. At best, this goes unnoticed and at its worst, looks like a hi-def home video shoot.

During the action sequences though, it works brilliantly. Every blade swing is crystal clear, every slain goblin sprawling from a cliff is beautifully articulated and the sweeping camera movements create sequences that seem painterly in their scope and motion.

People typically resist tech advancement at first, from the use of commercial airplanes to iTunes updates, so it’s hard to say what the real value of this technology is. Is a commercial and critical backlash symptomatic of a natural resistance to the new or is this a more definitive rejection?

One thing is clear, it’s going to take some adjustment for the uninitiated to accept high frame rate films, a process that isn’t going to happen overnight.

But technology is not the only thing on display here and unfortunately the story can be, at turns, equally lackluster and divisive.

Whereas The Lord of the Rings was surprising touching, its emotional resonance is almost entirely absent here. The bond of the original fellowship rendered the trilogy a record-breaking 11 Oscar wins (The Return of the King) but there is little earned about the relationships in this prequel.

The hefty troop of dwarves are more caricatures than fleshed-out people and the return of Gandalf, played by McKellen, is disappointingly amiss. The inimitable light has gone from his eyes as it has from the series itself.

While a handful of cameos from familiar faces may stir nostalgia for the original triad, it rarely serves the film effectively. An introductory scene that features a glimpse of a virginal Frodo is fine but entirely unnecessary to the plot of this tale. Freeman (Sherlock) however is perfectly cast as Bilbo and remains the most promising aspect of this film’s journey.

The standout of the film though is the glorious return of Gollum, played with wit and panache by series regular Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings, Rise of the Planet of the Apes). While Bilbo may be stealing Gollum’s precious ring, Serkis is stealing the scene.

While nothing here is egregious, The Hobbit fails to live up to the massive heights of one of the greatest film trilogies of all time. Although it’s better than your average blockbuster both in terms of its visual razzle-dazzle and plotting, it isn’t destined to join the ranks of unforgettable classics.

The end product is a loose hodgepodge of scenes, many of which could have been left for the blu-ray extended editions. Had Jackson focused more on storytelling and thoughtful character development, The Hobbit would have become a much tighter and purposeful film.

December '12 Digital Week III

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Sunday, 16 December 2012 10:00
Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Bill Cunningham New York
(Zeitgeist)
This engaging chronicle of the New York Times’ legendary photographer shows Cunningham’s unique work ethic as he navigates the busy New York streets for decades.
Cunningham is eccentric but appealing, and his photographs—which are still published every Sunday in the Times’ Style section—wittily balance the fashion and everyday worlds. The Blu-ray image looks good; extras include additional scenes and interviews.
La Boheme
(Deutsche Grammophon)
In Puccini’s beloved perennial, Anna Netrebko, as tragic heroine Mimi, provides her usual nuanced characterization with her magnificent vocal cords. As Roldofo, Piotr Beczala makes a good match, and their duets drip with the emotion Puccini put into his notes.
Too bad Damiano Michieletto’s 2012 Salzburg production has a modern setting, which neither ruins nor illuminates the story. Danielle Gatti conducts the Vienna Philharmonic and Salzburg Choir well; the Blu-ray image is immaculate.
Dick Tracy
(Disney)
Warren Beatty’s 1990 live-action cartoon about the legendary detective has such eye-popping visuals—the extravagance of Richard Sylbert’s sets, Milena Canonero’s costumes, John Caglione’s makeup and Vittorio Storaro’s cinematography—that the uneven movie suffers by comparison.
Beatty himself, while too old, is a decent Tracy, and Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman have a blast hamming it up as freakish villains. But the women—bland heroine Glynne Headley and unsexy “sexpot” Madonna—are hilariously awful. The Blu-ray image perfectly showcases the shining, brilliant colors.
Finding Nemo
(Disney)
The most sheerly delightful picture from Pixar’s stable deservedly won the 2003 Oscar for Best Animated Film, and has two strong voice performances: Albert Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres give perfect, tongue-in-cheek portrayals.
The visuals are cleverly presented, lacking the self-conscious humor Pixar would later fall into the trap of. The visuals look striking on Blu-ray; extras include featurettes, interviews and an alternate opening.
Mankind
(History)
This History Channel series ambitiously explores how civilization has moved forward through millennia, from ancient Egypt to the present, including fascinating parallels that might have eluded most of us, such as China’s thriving while Europe crawled through the Dark Ages.
Although I’m not a fan of the reenactment mania that has hit many documentaries, here it works, along with dazzling CGI that brings so many historical eras to vivid life. The hi-def image is excellent.
Nixon in China
(Nonesuch)
John Adams’ 1985 opera about Richard Nixon’s visit to Red China had its Metropolitan Opera premiere in 2010 in Peter Sellars’ staging, his most lucid directing job ever.
James Maddalena is a tremendous President Nixon, Janis Kelly an equally compelling Pat Nixon and Richard Paul Fink a stunning Mao; but Adams’ dramatic music—conducted by the composer himself—makes this a stage work for our times. The Blu-ray image is first-rate; extras include interviews with Sellars, Maddalena, Kelly, Fink and others.
Osombie
(e one)
I’m embarrassed to admit I watched this in its entirety: not that it’s bad—it’s watchably mediocre—but it’s a freaking zombie movie! Check that: it’s a zombie movie set in the Middle East as U.S. soldiers fend off al Qaeda zombies led by bin Laden himself.
The movie opens with a humorous take on Osama’s killing, as his body is dumped into the sea and he returns as a murderous member of the undead. The remaining 90 minutes become boring, with endless scenes of soldiers blowing heads off the walking dead. It’s likely a better time for 17 year old males. The Blu-ray image is very good.
Silent Night
(Anchor Bay)
I’m usually immune to the flagrant gore that’s risen exponentially in recent horror movies, but this tacky, “Santa Claus is Killing in Town” flick is reprehensible.
Despite the game Malcolm McDowell and Jaime King as sheriff and deputy tracking down the insane St. Nick, they’re defeated by murder scenes that go above and beyond, including a nasty sequence when a poor, nude bimbo is eviscerated in a tree shredder. The hi-def image is decent enough; extras include deleted scenes and an on-set featurette.
Titanic—Blood and Steel
(Lionsgate)
In Titanic’s centenary year, the focus has been on that damn iceberg: this mini-series instead concentrates on what happened before the ship sank. Michael Caton-Jones lucidly directs this epic prologue, in which Cunard officials, wealthy industrialists and backbreaking workers battle as the ship is built before its fateful voyage.
While interesting historically—giving a needed sense of balance to the tale—the series is too long: do we need 10-plus hours to tell these stories? The Blu-ray image looks terrific; extras include making-of featurettes.
Why Stop Now
(IFC)
There’s not much to this character study about a young man, on the day of his piano audition for a prestigious music school, who takes his drug-addicted mother to her dealer so she can score before being admitted to rehab.
It’s as strained as it sounds, and the detours taken are less amusing than co-writers-directors Philip Dorling and Ron Nyswaner think. But the excellent cast (Jesse Eisenberg, Melissa Leo, Tracy Morgan—guess who is whom?) wrings laughs and even pathos out of a clichéd situation. The hi-def image is good; extras include featurettes and a Morgan interview.
DVDs of the Week
Big Tits Zombie
(e one)
The title tells all: a bunch of strippers try and fend off a bunch of bloodthirsty zombies with their physical assets, and gory hilarity ensues.
There are a slew of bad, punning lines that occasionally sound funny in the crappy English dub (which again brings up What’s Up Tiger Lily?), so if you want to see it, skip the Japanese soundtrack. The movie is shown in both 2D and 3D, if spurting blood and scantily-clad stripper close-ups are your thing. Also included is a making-of featurette.
Dreams of a Life
(Strand)
The sad case of Joyce Vincent—whose skeleton was found in her apartment with the TV on a full three years after the 38-year-old died—is taken up imaginatively by writer-director Carol Morley, who intersperses recreated events from Joyce’s life with emotional interviews with people who knew her.
This fiction-documentary hybrid works quite well, even if it doesn’t (or can’t) answer the question of why no one noticed her missing before police discovered her after a lot of unpaid back rent. The lone extra is a 30-minute making-of featurette, Recurring Dreams.
The Ghost Sonata
(Arthaus Musik)
German composer Aribert Reimann likes to tackle serious literature in his operas—he set Kafka’s The Castle (1992) and Shakespeare’s King Lear (1978), his masterpiece—and he did it again with August Strindberg’s play The Ghost Sonata.
This recording, made during its 1984 Berlin premiere run, is yet another intensely dramatic Reimann opera whose modern idiom is an acquired taste. But those who take the plunge are rewarded with a compact (85 minute) and scalding musical ride. The singers are tremendous and the orchestra plays Reimann’s difficult music superbly under Friedemann Layer’s baton.
I Love It from Behind and Sex Hunter—Wet Target
(Impulse)
There’s little subtlety in these “classic” Japanese cult flicks. Behind follows a young female collector of penis prints who wants to get her 100th and last before getting married; she meets up with a man who can go at it for 24 hours without finishing, and she must do something about that.

Sex is a bloody flick about a man who avenges his sister’s rape/murder at the hand of a group of American soldiers. Not for everyone, obviously, but for those so inclined, they’re entertaining in spite of their risible deficiencies.
The Point
(MVD)
Singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson—creator of hit tunes and friend of the Beatles—created this amusing animated 1971 film about a young boy in the land of pointy-headed people whose round noggin makes him an outsider.
The obvious premise makes a decent children’s story, Nilsson’s songs (like “Me and My Arrow”) are instantly hummable, the animation harkens to the visual stew of Yellow Submarine, and Ringo Starr provides laconic narration. Extras include four featurettes about Nilsson’s career and the film.
CDs of the Week
Respighi: Marie Victoire
(CPO)
Italian composer Ottorino Respighi, best known for glorious orchestral scores Pines of Rome, Fountains of Rome and Three Botticelli Pictures, composed equally ravishing operas.
However, this hidden gem about Marie Antoinette—finished in 1913, it premiered in 2004, 68 years after Respighi’s death—boasts a meaty soprano role, taken in this 2009 recording by charismatic Takesha Meshe Kizart, who explodes with compelling emotion. Respighi’s richly melodic music is in good hands as Michail Jurowski conducts the Berlin Opera chorus and orchestra.
Schoenberg: Gurre-lieder
(Helicon)
Although he had already begun composing atonal works, Arnold Schoenberg premiered this great, gargantuan vocal masterwork in 1913; this 90-minute cantata for soloists, chorus and orchestra has a lushness and sweep reminiscent of Wagner and Mahler.
This recording, by the Israeli Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta’s direction, is flavorful if not completely gripping, although the quintet of soloists, speaker and Prague Philharmonic Choir acquit themselves admirably. Also included is a nicely paced account of the orchestral version of Schoenberg’s seminal sextet Verklarte Nacht.

More Articles...

  1. December in NYC: Holiday Music (and more) at Carnegie, Guggenheim, Met Museum
  2. December '12 Digital Week II
  3. NYC Theater Roundup: 'Dead Accounts,' 'Anarchist' on Bway; 'Good Mother,' 'Civil War' off-Bway

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