ENTERTAINMENT

08/26/2008

Dallas Black Dance Theater's Bloom group will perform in Uganda

Mike Stone\Special Contributor

McKinley Willis, Alexandria Johnson and Alysia Johnson rehearse the production of "Bloom."

Alexandria Johnson, 15, has spent nine years studying African dance. But she never dreamed she'd actually go, let alone perform, there. Today, that will change.

Wagner cousins battle to be Bayreuth Festival director's successor
FRANKFURT, Germany – As the annual Bayreuth Festival moves toward its conclusion later this week, the real drama is unfolding behind the scenes over a successor to 89-year-old director Wolfgang Wagner.

08/25/2008

Pianist Van Cliburn to perform at ceremony honoring Mikhail Gorbachev
Classical pianist Van Cliburn will perform next month during the 2008 Liberty Medal ceremony in Philadelphia honoring former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.

'Long Christmas Ride Home' dissolves into muddled mess

Buddy Myers

Left to right: Ginger Goldman, Shannon Worthington and Josh Blann

With The Long Christmas Ride Home, Stage West has given audiences a typically excellent production.

08/24/2008

A splendid, triumphant Second as the close of a FWSO Mahler cycle
FORT WORTH – For sheer sonorous ecstasy, few musical moments can challenge the end of Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony. Having initially whispered a promise of resurrection, the chorus now roars it triple-forte. And, after a delicious harmonic crunch, the orchestra – literally, with bells and whistles and just about anything else that can make noise – loudly proclaims a triumphant E-flat major.

08/22/2008

Texas Ballet Theater cancels live music

Ricky Moon/Special Contributor

Although the Texas Ballet Theater received a long-term $500,000 pledge Thursday morning, it is still planning to use recorded music for the 2008-09 season.

08/24/2008

FW Symphony performs Mahler's strange Seventh Symphony impressively
FORT WORTH – About 11 minutes in, Gustav Mahler's Seventh Symphony opens upon an aural oasis of heart-stopping beauty. Heralded by quiet woodwind and trumpet fanfares and a great whoosh of harp, violins send a gorgeous melody soaring on high. Aching harmonies tug from elsewhere in the orchestra.

08/23/2008

FW Symphony delivers sonic extravaganza for Mahler festival
FORT WORTH – It would be big news if the Berlin Philharmonic programmed Gustav Mahler's Sixth, Seventh and Second symphonies on three succeeding evenings. It's almost bigger news that the Fort Worth Symphony has done so – and so skillfully executed the Sixth Friday evening.

Weingartner String Quartets 1, 3: A

Gergiev's recording of Mahler's Seventh is a let-down
At the midpoint in a weekend triptych of Mahler symphonies, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra is tackling the Seventh tonight. Almost simultaneously, Valery Gergiev's Mahler Seventh, with the London Symphony Orchestra, has arrived on the orchestra's house label. "Recorded live March 2008," says the CD booklet, but the absence of applause at the end suggests there's been at least one splice from a rehearsal or subsequent patch-up session.

08/22/2008

George Steel to shake up Dallas Opera's repertory, venues
JFK haircut and all, George Steel is one smooth guy.

08/21/2008

New DVDs capture Van Cliburn's Moscow performances

FILE

Van Cliburn's 1958 victory stunned the classical music world.

Fifty years and four months ago, Van Cliburn made international headlines as winner of the first Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow.

08/20/2008

FWSO preps for Mahler symphonies

MARK ROGERS/special Contributor

Violinist Michael Shih

Michael Shih and Edward Jones represent the top and bottom of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra: Mr. Shih as concertmaster (first violin), Mr. Jones as principal (and usually only) tuba.

Texas Ballet Theater dancers organize fundraising effort
While Texas Ballet Theater administrators rush to raise $1 million to $1.5 million in the next 60 days, dancers called a news conference Tuesday to announce their own campaign.

08/19/2008

'Ugly Betty' wins top honors at 2008 ALMA Awards
PASADENA, Calif. – Ugly Betty and its star, America Ferrera, took top honors Sunday at the 2008 ALMA Awards, which recognize achievements by Hispanic artists.

08/16/2008

Financial woes could close Texas Ballet Theater

Ricky Moon / Special to DMN

Dancers perform at DFW Airport

Threatened by bankruptcy, the Texas Ballet Theater must raise $1 million to $1.5 million in two months or it will close.

John Eliot Gardiner's year of Bach cantatas makes delightful listening

Tom Sime's comedy 'My Favorite Animal' unleashes some funny moments
Apparently being a theater critic is good training for writing verbally rich, ebullient comedy. George Bernard Shaw certainly picked up the knack. Now, more than a century later, so has Tom Sime.

08/15/2008

Comedian Hal Sparks appearing at Addison Improv
Hal Sparks made TV audiences laugh as host of Talk Soup on E! He displayed a flair for the dramatic on the Showtime series Queer as Folk . But VH1 helped the 38-year-old actor and comedian find his true calling.

08/14/2008

Funding problem forces Texas Ballet Theater to cancel China trip
The Texas Ballet Theater on Wednesday canceled its trip to the China Shanghai International Arts Festival after falling more than $50,000 short in its effort to raise last-minute funding.

08/13/2008

Casa Mañana production of 'Damn Yankees' has a lotta heart
FORT WORTH – You might not have noticed, but the old silver-domed, refurbished Casa Mañana might just be the best place to see an old-fashioned musical in North Texas. And Damn Yankees is just the show to show it off.

08/11/2008

Clay Yocum gets macho for 'A Streetcar Named Desire'

George Wada

Clay Yocum (front) as Stanley

Clay Yocum owns the Dallas monopoly on macho roles in drama right now. You'd never guess he was almost a Mouseketeer.

08/12/2008

Dallas Opera pulls surprise move with hiring of George Steel

Whitney Lawson

George Steel

In a surprise move, the Dallas Opera has ventured outside the world of opera for its next general director.

Mahler's Fifth is splendid in hands of Jaap van Zweden
Mahler's Fifth Symphony will be the party piece on Jaap van Zweden's first Dallas concerts, Sept. 10-14, as music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. (He conducted the DSO in the piece last month at the Festival del Sole in Napa Valley, Calif.)

News and notes from around the arts world
For this Olympiad, The Guardian 's Alex Marshall thought it fitting to track down the 205 national anthems that could possibly be played for winning athletes and give them a critical ranking. That was easier said than done, and he found the results of his quest less than scintillating.

08/10/2008

Contemporary Theatre's 'Streetcar' travels splendidly on the right track
You might not have noticed before, but A Streetcar Named Desire really is all about desire.

Uptown Players' musical 'Zanna, Don't!' delivers engaging music, message
Can a musical be fabulous fluff and a soapbox at the same time?

08/09/2008

Falla's 'Nights in the Gardens of Spain' gets a gripping evocation by Ataulfo Argenta

Berlin Philharmonic turns in polished performances of Stravinsky symphonies

Texas Ballet Theater must raise $75,000 to attend approaching China arts festival
Texas Ballet Theater has spent two years preparing for its trip to the China Shanghai International Arts Festival, where the troupe's dancers are scheduled to perform a full-length production of Cleopatra on Oct. 29 and Oct. 30.

08/08/2008

Dessay, Fleming, Horne, Milnes and Adams win Opera News Awards
Opera awards announced

Dennis Miller returns to his favorite job, stand-up comedy
There are comedians who joke about airplane food and a guy walking into a bar. And then there are comedians who joke about current events and the everyday absurdities that are elsewhere in the media known as news and politics. Dennis Miller isn't just in the latter category; he's the very definition of it.

08/04/2008

Dallas Opera co-founder Nicola Rescigno dies at 92
Dallas Opera co-founder Nicola Rescigno died in a hospital in Viterbo, Italy, on Monday. He was 92.

08/03/2008

The Wiggles get youngsters wiggling and singing at Nokia
Connor O'Dea of Fort Worth is only 3, but Saturday's Pop Go the Wiggles Live Summer tour at Nokia Theatre in Grand Prairie marked his second awesome Aussie foursome concert.

Scott Cantrell in Santa Fe: 'Radamisto' voices, visuals dazzle
SANTA FE, N.M.–No soap opera could outdo the plot of Handel's Radamisto .

Enthusiast rents out Radio City Music Hall just to play its famed pipe organ
NEW YORK – Jack Moelmann is a retired Air Force colonel with a passion for playing the pipe organ. His love for the instrument runs so deep that he plunked down nearly $120,000 to fulfill his lifelong dream of performing on the famed Wurlitzer organ at Radio City Music Hall.

Orchestras push on with European tours

Lawson Taitte: Blue language in some theater shows make some see red
A few days before Jersey Boys opened at the Dallas Summer Musicals last week, a friend asked me about the language. He had heard that it was a little rough. I have to confess that after years of David Mamet, I have become numb to most words we can't fit in a family newspaper. But sure enough, the show was quite a bit raunchier than what audiences at "family musicals" are used to.

08/02/2008

New Orleans theaters making a comeback after Hurricane Katrina

Exercise keeps Estelle Parsons fit for demanding Broadway role
NEW YORK – Estelle Parsons tears up the staircase in the haunted dollhouse of a set in the Broadway production of August: Osage County with the nimbleness of an Olympian. For the next several months, this 80-year-old Oscar winner will inhabit the physically demanding role of Violet Weston, the drug-ravaged matriarch of August , former Dallas actor Tracy Letts' Tony Award-winning play.

Opera houses across the world are booking Dallas' Laura Claycomb
SANTA FE, N.M. – Growing up in Dallas, Laura Claycomb was no stranger to Santa Fe.

'60s productions of Wagner and Mozart earn their fame
As more and more live recordings from decades past get commercial release, opera fans are spoiled for choice. Here are two famous British productions from the 1960s. You can easily claim that they're the two greatest comic operas ever, maybe the greatest operas period, if you judge by psychological realism and humane insight.

Catoire's Works for Violin and Piano: B+

Scott Cantrell in Santa Fe: 'Billy Budd' would benefit from a recast
SANTA FE, N.M. – While the operas of Benjamin Britten were becoming standard repertory with companies around the globe, they were long rare at Santa Fe Opera. But after succeeding founding general director John Crosby in 2000, Richard Gaddes booked Santa Fe's first Peter Grimes in 2005. This summer, Mr. Gaddes' last before retirement, sees the first Santa Fe Billy Budd .

08/01/2008

Scott Cantrell in Santa Fe: Opera premieres arresting war story, 'Adriana Mater'
SANTA FE, N.M. – Blood vs. sense, female nurture vs. male violence and, finally, coming to terms with the past: In a "mere" two hours and 45 minutes, with one intermission, Adriana Mater certainly raises Big Issues.

'Not the Messiah' musical based on Python film is hailed as 'hysterically funny'
What do a philharmonic orchestra in white dinner jackets and black ties, a 40-piece choir, four opera singers, fireworks, a 32-piece bagpipe band, a narrator, some sheep and a leaf blower add up to?

Circle Theatre's 'Unnecessary Farce' is pure and necessary silliness
FORT WORTH – Unnecessary Farce is definitely a farce, but hardly unnecessary.

07/31/2008

Follow critic Scott Cantrell in Santa Fe

Ken Howard

Figaro at Santa Fe Opera

During his trip to Santa Fe, our classical music critic blogs about the opera, the people he encounters and, of course, chile.

International program in Fort Worth gives young performers hope
As a 15-year-old living in Israel, Liran Roimi had a dark, cynical view of the world. Then he took his English teacher's advice and came to Kids Who Care in Fort Worth to help put on the theater company's annual new musical.

Theater Review: 'Midsummer Night's Dream' is a Bollywood blast
The stars seemed to be twinkling with more merriment than usual at "what fools these mortals be" when Junior Players opened A Midsummer Night's Dream with a spicy Bollywood twist at Samuell-Grand Park Amphitheater on Tuesday night.

Scott Cantrell in Sante Fe: Opera's 'Falstaff' lacks consistency
SANTA FE, N.M. – In our age of political correctness, maybe it's thought gauche to laugh at a fat old man who imagines himself an irresistible Lothario. But surely Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff is a stand-in for all our follies and self-deceptions and, yes, overeating.

07/30/2008

Scott Cantrell in Sante Fe: Elaborate scenery, expressive cast make for a modern 'Figaro'
SANTA FE, N.M. – One of those only-in-Santa Fe vistas greeted the audience for Monday's performance of The Marriage of Figaro . Behind row upon row of faux flowers on the stage of the Crosby Theatre, the open upstage gave a view of real purple mountains and streaks of clouds in a yellowish sunset. The best set painter couldn't have matched the magic.

07/29/2008

Melissa Gilbert returns to her 'Prairie' roots
MINNEAPOLIS – Melissa Gilbert has finally come home to the prairie – or at least to the big city near the prairie. She has yet to sink her feet into Plum Creek, next to the dugout where the real-life Laura Ingalls Wilder lived in the 1870s.

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