What if I told you that there was once a composer as great as any who ever lived, as famous and beloved during his day as Bach and Beethoven were during theirs – but that you might never have heard a note of his music? On February 5th the Friends of Chamber music brought the marvelous a […]

Sometimes the best way to deal with the horrors of war is to break into song. Yes war is ghastly, but it is also rife with absurdities that often cry out for satire, and for the lighter touch that a song can bring. Oh, What a Lovely War! – whose very title cues us into its sardonic […]

The Metropolitan Opera’s Nixon in China rides on powerful performances and a meticulous, lavishly outfitted production. Through the miracle of HD, I was able to see the February 12thperformance live at the AMC Town Center multiplex, along with a sizable handful of other opera buffs. John Adams, the work’s composer, conducted the production, and of course he […]

It’s hard to imagine Joyce DiDonato’s vocal artistry getting any better: The world-renowned mezzo-soprano from Prairie Village stands at her absolute prime. Her Harriman-Jewell Recital on February 13th—which happened to be her 42nd birthday—demonstrated the full range of her capabilities, offering a generous array of arias, scenes and French and Italian songs. Her mezzo is gorgeously […]

“Oh, What a Lovely War!” is a curious piece of theater, a combination epic musical, black farce and history lesson that does not preach but still manages to “bring home” the horrors of war—in this case World War I. The Kansas City Actors Theatre production that opened on February 17th, a collaboration with UMKC Theatre […]

Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment is perhaps more sentimental comedy than farce, though the wanton absurdities of its plot invite elements of silliness. The Lyric Opera’s production of the 1840 bel canto classic plays it somewhere in the middle, and the result is an entertaining evening with strong singing and a generous portion of well-grounded comedic action. If […]

One of the specialties of the Harriman-Jewell Series has been to present recital debuts—either world or U.S. debuts—of budding young opera stars. On March 5th at the Folly the headline-grabbing young American tenor Stephen Costello will present the 20th such debut, following in a distinguished line that has included Luciano Pavarotti, June Anderson, Carol Vaness, Ben Heppner, Sergei Leiferkus, Salvatore Licitra, […]

Adam Schoenberg’s American Symphony adopts an accessible style but does not stray so far into a Hollywood idiom that it grows cheesy. The agreeable new piece, a Kansas City Symphony commission, received its world premiere on March 4th at the Lyric Theatre, with the Symphony led by music director Michael Stern. If the finale felt prolix in proportion […]

Tenor Stephen Costello possesses a natural, rich-auburn voice with a durable top, a pleasantly feathery lower register, a sweet head-voice that can shift into full voice with fetching ease, and a big capacity for warm pathos. The American artist, who made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2007 and won the Richard Tucker Award in 2009, seems destined for a […]

How does one pay suitable homage to Henry Fogel, arts visionary, longtime orchestra executive, and current dean and distinguished professor of the arts at Roosevelt University? For the League of American Orchestras, which Henry led from 2003 to 2008, the best way to honor the man who has fought tirelessly for the continued importance of classical music […]

The dancers of the Kansas City Ballet are known for their proficiency in a wide variety of styles, and we sometimes forget that classical ballet remains at the core of their training and artistry. The company’s mastery of this centuries-old art form—which stands at the center of Western dance—was on glorious display at its production […]

The Akademie für alte Musik Berlin performs Baroque music with a bright, solid sense of style, technique to spare and, where necessary, a sense of playfulness and mirth. Their performance on March 11th at the Folly Theater, part of the Friends of Chamber Music’s series, offered delights and, at times, frustrations but was ultimately a satisfying […]

When we listen to Bach’s keyboard music today, do we hear the same thing he did 300 years ago? It’s the kind of question that spurs musicians and lay music-lovers alike to ponder and explore historical practices. For example: Anyone who took a music history class in the last century was probably taught that Bach […]

Evan Luskin, who joined the Lyric Opera of Kansas City in 1986 and has  been its general director since 1998, announced on March 15th that he would retire at the end of the 2011-2012 season, the company’s  first year in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Luskin, who led the Lyric from a small regional company […]

Composers have long delighted in creating elaborate narrative “programs” for their instrumental works, then instructing us not to rely on the programs too much, or even asking us to ignore them altogether. At issue is a tension over whether a piece conceived programmatically can also stand on its own as “pure” music. Avner Dorman’s new Piano Concerto […]

Can one woman change the direction of a culture? We all know the answer is yes, but it’s still gratifying to see it when it happens. Among her multifarious other accomplishments Valerie Naranjo —a native of Colorado who has played with the Saturday Night Live band and for the Broadway hit The Lion King — is credited with having helped […]

It’s not often that a 12-minute piece by a living American composer proves to be the musical highlight of a two-hour concert of classical favorites. Usually the “modern” piece is that cacophonous thing that you grin and bear to get through to the good stuff. But at Friday’s season-opening concert by the Kansas City Symphony, […]

Choreographer David Parsons’ earnest new piece Remember Me takes as its ambition to do Jesus Christ Superstar and Movin’ Out one better, by creating not just rock-opera or rock-ballet but rock-opera-ballet. Its conceit seems reasonable enough: to tell a love story through dance in collaboration with singers of the East Village Opera Company, a group that in recent years has achieved fame/notoriety for creating big-boned […]

Are you as tired as I am of country singers and demagogues telling you what it is that makes America great? Freedom, family values, guns, pickup trucks. Choreographer Paul Taylor embodies, as much as any American I know, the values that have made this country strong:  At 79, he still works like the devil every day, using […]

Octarium continues to refine its sonority and musical profile, and its distinguished concert on November 14 and 15, Modern Masters, showed that the group is gaining heft with leading choral composers around the country as well. The program included two world premieres and marked the release of a CD by the same title containing the music performed […]

If you want to know what the six youngsters playing the lead parts in the Kansas City Ballet’s The Nutcracker think about what they do, just ask them. Not only can they pirouette, plié and jeté, these boys and girls aged 9 to 14 can also talk about dance with clarity, thoughtfulness and no small amount of humor. We recently sat […]