the traveler's resource guide to festivals & films
a FestivalTravelNetwork.com site
part of Insider Media llc.
Film and the Arts
This Season's Final Performance of The Nutcracker
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 24 January 2011 05:39
- Written by Jack Angstreich
On the evening of Sunday, January 2nd, 2011, New York City Ballet presented the last performance of the season of their annual presentation of George Balanchine's The Nutcracker.
The orchestra, under the baton of Clotilde Otranto, sounded especially fine. Balanchine's choreography here doesn't approach his greatest works until the gorgeous Waltz of the Snowflakes at the end of the first Act; the second Act, which contains the greater portion of the score's best music, is quintessential Balanchine throughout.
I would have liked more discipline from the corps de ballet but the dancing of several of the strongest principals in the company raised this performance above average. Megan Fairchild as the Sugarplum Fairy was at her near best in her Dance of the same name.
Her pas de deux with the often superb Joaquin De Luz as her cavalier was more uncertain, partly as the foreseeable consequence of De Luz's shorter stature; however, they both excelled in the ensuing solo variations, especially de Luz whose athleticism was notably admirable here.
Teresa Reichlen as Coffee in the Arabian Dance was quite good while Daniel Ulbricht -- another short dancer with athletic gifts -- showed off splendidly, if inconsistently, in the Russian Dance and the Finale. The highlight of the evening, however, was the lovely Sara Mearns, exquisite as Dewdrop in the magnificent Waltz of the Flowers.
The Nutcracker
New York City Ballet
January 2, 2011
David H. Koch Theater
20 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York, NY 10023
212-870-5640
New York Philharmonic delivers Dec. 30 concert
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 24 January 2011 04:00
- Written by Jack Angstreich
On December 30th, 2010, the New York Philharmonic, under the direction of Alan Gilbert, presented what proved to be an utterly delightful program, revised due to the recent snowstorm, substituting a few familiar classics for some modern works originally scheduled.The concert opened with a thrilling rendition of the exciting Polonaise from Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, played here with a superb control of orchestral dynamics.
December 30, 2010
Avery Fisher Hall
10 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York, NY 10023
212-875-5656
NY String Orchestra 2nd concert review
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 24 January 2011 03:36
- Written by Jack Angstreich
The second of the two recent New York String Orchestra concerts at Carnegie Hall under the direction of Jaime Laredo -- this one took place on December 28th, 2010 -- was much more impressive than the agreeable first program.
The highlight of the evening for me was the all-too-rarely performed, arresting Samuel Barber Capricorn Concerto for Flute, Oboe, Trumpet, and Strings. Played with a full command of the glittering range of tone of this engaging work, the orchestra was superbly matched by an accomplished trio of soloists: Tara Helen O'Connor on flute, Ariana Ghez on oboe, and David Washburn on trumpet.
The ensemble did fine work with the more ambitious concerto that followed -- the Romantic, tuneful Brahms Double Concerto for Violin and Cello --here accompanying soloists Daniel Hope and Paul Watkins, respectively.
That extraordinary masterpiece, the Beethoven Eroica Symphony, closed the evening -- Laredo led the players in an estimable reading of this titanic but also very familiar work, managing by the program's end to fully redeem the promise of the previous week's concert.
New York String Orchestra Concert
December 28, 2010
Carnegie Hall
881 7th Ave.
New York, NY 10019
212-247-7800
on Inside Job
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 24 January 2011 02:26
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Inside Job, directed by Charles Ferguson, is another clever, engaging, and entertaining documentary of no especial aesthetic merit but is a well-crafted account of the recent financial crisis.
Much of the film is devoted to exposition and it thus eschews the gonzo mode of Michael Moore even as it features several confrontational interviews where the subjects are greatly embarrassed by the questions posed to them.
The film is especially noteworthy in at least two respects. First, Ferguson devotes several minutes to revealing the intellectual and ethical bankruptcy of academic economics. Second, the film doesn't shrink from exposing the collusion of the Democratic Clinton and -- especially and remarkably -- the Obama Administrations with the moneyed interests that precipitated the crisis.
The main weakness here is the final, naive exhortation for government reform, where everything preceding this in the film suggests that such a possibility is purely utopian.
