New York, New York
LIMELIGHT’S GUIDE TO THE BEST ARTS EVENTS IN THE BIG APPLE this January
Classical Music
Daphnis & Dvořák
Jaap van Zweden’s inaugural season as Music Director continues with a pair of blockbusters. Paavo Jarvi leads the New York Philharmonic in Ravel’s lush ballet score for Daphnis et Chloé, while French cellist Gautier Capuçon performs Dvořák’s ever-popular concerto. Sibelius’s playful Lemminkainen and the Maidens of the Island completes the program.
Leif Ove Andsnes
Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes is renowned for his thoughtful musicianship across a wide repertoire. His Carnegie Hall recital begins and ends with Schumann: the composer’s gift to his beloved, the Three Romances, Op. 28 and his lively Carnaval. In between, he reflects on two 20th-century masterpieces in Janacek’s On an Overgrown Path and Three Burlesques by Bartók.
Sabine Devielhe
Sabine Devieilhe has won acclaim of late for her bright and flexible voice and her dramatic sensibility in operatic repertoire from Rameau to Delibes, and especially in Mozart. Her Carnegie Hall recital reflects her noted gift for programing and focuses on French mélodies of the early 20th century and includes work by Debussy, Ravel, Roussel and Poulenc.
Fire in my Mouth
Jaap van Zweden conducts the premiere of Julia Wolfe’s Fire in my Mouth, an immersive visual and musical event for voices, video and projection. The work explores a seminal New York event, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 that killed more than 100 immigrants. Steven Stucky’s Elegy from August 4, 1964 and Copland’s Clarinet Concerto complete the bill.
Jakub Józef Orliński
Polish countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński is one of early music’s rapidly rising stars. Accompanied by New York Baroque Incorporated, his Carnegie Hall debut locates itself on the Baroque’s divide between the sacred and the operatic with works including Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater and expressive arias from rarely heard oratorios by Fago, Schiassi, Teradellas and Hasse.
Opera
4.48 Psychosis
The Royal Opera’s staging of Philip Venable’s take on British playwright Sarah Kane’s chilling final play gets its US premiere at the pioneering Prototype Opera Festival. A fusion of opera and spoken text, the work deals with clinical depression – which would ultimately prove Kane’s own downfall – and an individual’s struggle to come to terms with their own psychosis.
The Sonic Great Wall
Born in the final days of China’s Cultural Revolution, Huang Ruo’s synthesis of new and traditional music has garnered him international acclaim. His multimedia opera draws inspiration from the Great Wall of China and invites audience members to move freely about the space as the performers similarly circulate between outposts.
The Little Death: Vol. 1
The late Matt Marks’ music theatre debut fused electro-pop, break beats and apocalyptic Christian imagery. Holding these disparate elements together is an unconventional narrative that follows Boy (Ted Hearne) and Girl (Mellissa Hughes) on a journey through the world of Fundamentalist Evangelism, as they cope with repressed sexuality in a modern world.
Pelléas et Mélisande
Debussy’s shimmering symbolist meditation on love and betrayal returns to the Met for the first time in almost a decade with new Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the helm. Paul Appleby and Isabel Leonard are the lovers of the title with Kyle Ketelsen as the jealous Golaud, Ferruccio Furlanetto as Arkel and Marie-Nicole Lemieux as Geneviève.
Iolanta & Bluebeard’s Castle
Mariusz Treliński’s haunting production of Tchaikovsky’s and Bartók’s one-act operas returns with Sonya Yoncheva as Iolanta, the blind princess who finds love for the first time in the guise of tenor Matthew Polenzani as the dashing knight Vaudémont. In Bluebeard’s Castle, Gerald Finley is the sinister Bluebeard with Angela Denoke as his latest wife.
Musicals & Theatre
Ionesco Suite
Cake, hilarity, and interpersonal follies abound in a feat of repartee and wordplay from director Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota and Théâtre de la Ville, Paris. Seven actors enliven the tragicomic stylings of playwright Eugène Ionesco – one of the leading figures of the Theater of the Absurd – in this mashup of five texts staged as an unruly dinner party.
By the Way, Meet Vera Stark
Two-time Pulitzer winner Lynn Nottage’s satire is set in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Stark, an aspiring starlet, works as a maid to aging star Gloria Mitchell. Worlds collide when Vera lands a trailblazing role in an antebellum epic starring… her boss. While Vera’s portrayal was groundbreaking, film buffs still grapple with the actress’s legacy.
Choir Boy
The Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys is dedicated to the education of strong, ethical black men. Can one talented student take his rightful place as the leader of the legendary gospel choir if he sings in his own key? The New York Times called Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play “vivid, magnetic and moving,” when it premiered at Manhattan Theater Club.
True West
Holed up in their mother’s house, screenwriter Austin and lowlife Lee wrestle with big issues (and each other), leading to the airing of old resentments and some unexpected twists. Ethan Hawke and Golden Globe nominee Paul Dano star in Roundabout Theatre Company’s new production of Sam Shepard’s Tony and Pulitzer Prize-nominated drama.
Superhero
Before we can save the world,
we have to save each other. Superhero is a new musical about a fractured family, a mysterious stranger in apartment 4-B, and the unexpected hero who just might save the day from Tom Kitt (Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer of Next to Normal and High Fidelity), and John Logan (Tony Award-winning writer of Red).
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.