Raavan (2009, dir. Mani Ratnam). Aishwarya Rai’s Ragini remains too little marred by abduction, rock-scaling, near-drowning, food refusal, traumatic witnessing, being dragged from cave to pit to cave and so on. The camera still fondles her face as it might any cover-girl—confirming this face to be as fascinating as that of some infant cyborg. Abhishek […]
Mughal-e-Azam again and forever, but this time on the big screen at Walter Reade, in the original version, not 2004 full colorization. As heady a myriad of beauty and sensation as ever. The full ten scintillating seconds of pearls sent scattering, pattering onto a polished patterned floor. The billet-doux secreted into the lotus flower, the […]
Thirty-odd concerts since September between Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. Missed a handful of the best offerings: Thomas Adès’s brilliantly programmed Carnegie recital, Muti’s Met conducting debut with Attila (how I heart Ildar Abdrazakov—ever since seeing his 2004 Met debut as Masetto), Lulu at the Met with Marlies Peterson who rules that role. And no […]
Also filed in Music, New York, Opera
|
Tagged abdrazakov, berg, bruckner, chopin, cleveland orchestra, lulu, masur, ny philharmonic, philadelphia orchestra, yundi, yundi li
|
Basement Bhangra 13th anniversary Friday at the Fillmore Irving Plaza: a re-inspection after many years away. The combination of busy yet puzzling performer line-up with low bhangra-to-hip-hop ratio, and probably roomier venue, and probably too-predictable playlists, resulted in a night of fits and starts and mostly waiting. Nina Sky: cute; random. Raghav (who he?): low-blow […]
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Belatedly catching up on the Winter Olympics, especially the figure-skating pair upon which China has been pinning its dreams. After near-misses at three prior Olympics, Shen Xue (31) and Zhao Hongbo (36) finally took the gold Monday—with a new world record. In the flawless clinching of each most critical moment one sensed the poignant history […]
Also filed in Dance, Love, Music, New York
|
Tagged carnegie, dyad, figure skating, Love, mahler, mariss janssons, rco, royal concertgebouw
|
Monday, November 30, 2009
Seeing Lang Lang twice this season at Carnegie Hall brought to mind a remarkable clip from his Carnegie appearance back in November 2003 — a piano-erhu duo with his father that has since become an occasional set-piece. For all the childhood-obliterating pressure Lang Guoren put his son through—recounted by the latter, corroborated by the former—their […]
Madame Butterfly in HD [rebroadcast of the live March 7 Met performance] March 17, 2009, Walter Reade Theatre at Lincoln Center Metropolitan Opera Conductor: Patrick Summers Production: Anthony Minghella Cast: Patricia Racette (Cio-Cio San), Marcello Giordani (Pinkerton), Maria Zifchak (Suzuki), Dwayne Croft (Sharpless) The drama was taut, the gorgeousness detailed. The staging: imaginative, often exquisite, […]
Also filed in Film, Love, Music, New York, Opera
|
Tagged cho-cho san, hd, lincoln center, madame butterly, marcello giordani, minghella, Opera, patricia racette, pinkerton, puccini, puppetry, puppets, reviews, theatre, walter reade
|
[A still from Земля] Chinese National Symphony Orchestra at Boston’s Symphony Hall. Kiarostami’s A Taste of Cherry and Dovzhenko’s Земля [Earth] at the Harvard Film Archive. Labor and land preoccupy both; and in each, a visual symphony of tractors. One is reminded of Russian cinema’s obsession with the sun-baked, dirt-caked, beard-bristling face — eyes always […]
Also filed in Film, Labor, Music
|
Tagged dovzhenko, earth, faces, harvard film archive, kiarostami, land, orchestras, russia, symphonies, taste of cherry
|
Saw a TV commercial the other day for this ensemble which I found mildly disturbing. Maybe because the sight of such synchronized strummings and smiles is bound to fire up some Asian-fetishist’s duodecuplet fantasy; maybe because those who order the Eastern Energy CD/DVD (officially released today and already scoring a sales rank of 15 on […]
“It was a great party — if you’ve never been to a party before.” Several though not all of the following recent excursions brought to mind those words by Truman Capote. Lakeside barbecue in Groton, Mass., at a plush and cozily posh house at the edge of the woods, rented for the year by a […]