New York, New York
LIMELIGHT’S GUIDE TO THE BEST ARTS EVENTS IN THE BIG APPLE this APRIL
Classical Music
Reich Richter Pärt
New York’s newest arts complex, The Shed, opens its classical program with these immersive live performances – one conceived by composer Steve Reich and painter Gerhard Richter as a genre-crossing film with live music, the other by Richter and composer Arvo Pärt – both of which explore the shared sensory language of visual art and music.
Piotr Anderszewski
The Linclon Center Great Performers series continues with Piotr Anderszewski. An artist who is always pushing further to reveal hidden depths, the Polish pianist returns to one of Beethoven’s most revered and challenging opuses, the Diabelli Variations. Anderszewski has long been associated with the work, having recorded it for his debut album.
A Brett Dean Premiere
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presents Seven Signals for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano, an exciting new work by Australian composer and violist Brett Dean. Dean’s important addition to the clarinet quartet repertoire appears alongside classics from Beethoven, Debussy and Brahms, who Dean counts among his key influences.
A Du Yun Premiere
The exciting and exploratory American Composers Orchestra performs a new work on the subject of migration by the inspired Pulitzer Prize-winning Chinese composer Du Yun. There’s also a Morton Feldman work inspired by ancient manuscripts found along the Silk Road and Gloria Coates’ daring exploration of unconventional string tuning.
Jaap’s Mahler Six
Mahler is a Jaap van Zweden calling card, and here the New York Phil’s new music director conducts the Sixth. Essentially tragic, it includes passages of great beauty and calm” violins soaring in a portrait of the composer’s wife and the sound of distant cowbells. But in the end, Mahler revealed, prophetic hammer-blows of fate “fell [the hero] like the stroke of an axe.”
Opera
Tosca
The last chance this season to catch Met rising star Jennifer Rowley as the volatile diva at the heart of Puccini’s operatic thriller. Joseph Calleja brings his stylish tenor to the role of Cavaradossi with Wolfgang Koch making his Met debut in the role of the nefarious police chief Scarpia. Carlo Rizzi conducts Sir David McVicar’s sumptuous production.
Ivo van Hove’s Diary
Director Ivo van Hove brings his trademark physicality and stripped-down aesthetic to bear on Janáček’s masterly song cycle. Featuring tenor Andrew Dickinson and mezzo-soprano Marie Hamard and additional music by composer Annelies Van Parys, Van Hove’s reimagining paints a deeply affecting portrait of identity, infatuation, and ultimately, alienation.
Ring Cycle returns
Two further cycles of Wagner’s Ring begin this month led by Christine Goerke making her Met role debut as Brünnhilde. Greer Grimsley and Michael Volle share Wotan with Stefan Vinke and Andreas Schager as Siegfried. Stuart Skelton reprises his star turn as Siegmund. Philippe Jordan conducts Robert Lepage’s faithful production with its infamous ‘machine’.
Traviata’s back
Michael Mayer’s brightly textured new production returns for a second run with soprano Anita Hartig as the tragic heroine Violetta and tenor Stephen Costello singing the role of Alfredo. Baritone Artur Ruciński sings two performances as Alfredo’s father before the indestructible Plácido Domingo takes over later in the month. Nicola Luisiotti conducts.
Huang Ruo’s Bound
Fresh Squeezed Opera presents the NY premiere of Bound, a new opera by Huang Ruo. The Vietnamese idea of “family first” come into conflict with the American notion of the individual’s success as a mother leaves her husband and children because she has found a voice that has been squashed by her husband’s old-fashioned notion of the subservient wife.
Musicals & Theatre
Norma Jeane Baker of Troy
Norma Jeane Baker of Troy is a partly spoken, partly sung performance piece by poet, essayist, and scholar Anne Carson. Katie Mitchell directs actor Ben Whishaw and soprano Renée in an exploration of the lives and myths of Marilyn Monroe and Helen of Troy – iconic beauties who lived millennia apart.
Glenda Jackson in King Lear
Tony and two-time Academy Award winner Glenda Jackson returns to Broadway to play Lear in a new production directed by Tony winner Sam Gold. “Glenda Jackson is the mightiest of them all,” says Ben Brantley of The New York Times. The play will also feature an original score by the legendary composer Philip Glass.
Gary
Nathan Lane and Andrea Martin star in the premiere of Gary, the new comedy by Taylor Mac. Directed by George C. Wolfe, Gary is set just after the blood-soaked conclusion of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. The civil war has ended and there are casualties everywhere. And two very lowly servants – Lane and Martin – are charged with cleaning up the bodies.
Tootsie
A new musical by Tony Yazbek and Robert Horn. Dorothy Michaels is the biggest sensation to hit Broadway in years. She’s talented, outspoken, and an inspiration to everyone around her. In fact, she’s too good to be true. Because squeezed into Dorothy’s sensible pumps is actually Michael Dorsey, an out-of-work actor willing to do anything for a job.
Ink (The Murdoch Play)
It’s 1969 London and brash young Rupert Murdoch (Bertie Carvel) purchases a struggling paper, The Sun, setting out to destroy the competition. He brings on rogue editor Larry Lamb (Jonny Lee Miller) who in turn recruits an unlikely team of underdog reporters. Together, they will go to any lengths. James Graham’s London hit is directed by Rupert Goold.
New York, New York
LIMELIGHT’S GUIDE TO THE BEST ARTS EVENTS IN THE BIG APPLE
Australians are the world’s greatest tourists, right? And no city offers quite as much in the way of artist thrills and spills as the Big Apple. After a year spent finding his feet, Limelight Editor-at-Large Clive Paget has hunted down the big names and haunted the city’s glittering venues. He’s also found unexpected performance spaces, from clubs to churches and even the odd cemetery. From the glamour of the Met and the buzz of Broadway to classical music hideaways and, yes, even some free stuff, our insider’s guide aims to be everything an adventurous cultural tourist needs.