You I Like – Jerry Herman Click here for tickets More and more, these days, I find myself needing a Jerry Herman ‘fix’. Think you’re not familiar with Jerry Herman? Yes, you are. He wrote the music and lyrics for Mame, La Cage aux Folles, Hello, Dolly!, Mack and Mabel, many others, some of Broadway’s biggest ever hit musicals. They’re full of showtunes you know and can sing along with. The great musical director, Andy Einhorn, knows all about Jerry Herman and has collected a lot of those joyful and optimistic songs (and a few singers to sing them) at California’s currently dark Pasadena Playhouse. All the famous hits are here, and a few which may be new to you. The result is the ultimate Jerry Herman ‘fix’. $25 Flight – Myths and Hymns Part 1 Click here to watch Many faces and voices, some very recognisable, others anonymous, perform in this first part of a 4-part virtual production of award-winning composer Adam Guettel’s Myths and Hymns. I love this piece. The music is not immediately accessible. Stay with it, let it wash over you. You’ll ‘get’ it, I promise, and you won’t be able to turn away from it. Guettel, probably best known as the composer of the Broadway hit musical The Light in the Piazza, (and grandson of Richard Rodgers) has woven together a kaleidoscopic collection of musical genres including R&B, pop, gospel, musical theatre and classical, to explore the nature of faith and longing in a secular world. Myths and Hymns will eventually be released as 23 short films in four sections, Flight, Work, Love, and Faith. This one, Flight, is just the beginning. The others will follow later in the year. MasterVoices’ Tony Award-winning Artistic Director Ted Sperling has brought together for this digital staging a huge assembly of soloists, directors, animators and illustrators from the worlds of theatre, opera, television, and film. Anyone who can get the likes of Renee Fleming, Kelli O’Hara, Norm Lewis and Joshua Henry to play tiny bit-parts has something going for him. Dames at Sea 1971 TV Click here to watch In the mood to watch something really silly? My friend Adele has found it for you in a television version from 1971. Dames at Sea may not be the silliest musical ever made but it comes close. Its saving grace, apart from its silliness, of course, is a wonderful cast of A.M.s - Ann Margret, Anne Meara, and Ann Miller. They were each of them big stars at the time and, even among the terrible jokes, awful songs, tacky costumes and dreadful wigs, you can see why. Dames at Sea is a reminder of a simpler, easier era that I, at least, am glad we’ve left. However, the dancing is first-rate, if not the choreography, and Ann Miller’s feet still tap faster than the speed of sound. She boasted she could tap more than 500 taps per minute. Nobody has ever been able to count fast enough to check. It’s a hoot! And couldn’t we use a hoot right about now? Brian Friel’s Faith Healer – Old Vic Encore Click here for tickets The Old Vic is reshowing its wonderful production of Brian Friel’s brilliant Faith Healer starring Michael Sheen, David Threlfall and Indira Varma. This is an ever shifting exploration of the power of belief, as the contradicting recollections of these three nomadic characters – Francis Hardy, who attempts to heal those who wish to be healed, his wife Grace, and his manager Teddy - travel the length and breadth of the UK, seeking to reconcile with the past, each with their own telling of the loss, love and struggle of life on the road with a seemingly predestined faith healer. £15 20–22 Jan at 7.30pm Irish Rep Winter Festival - Molly Sweeney Click here to watch If, like me, you’re a Brian Friel fan, New York’s Irish Rep are reshowing their excellent production of Molly Sweeney but we’ll have to wait until Jan 26th if we’re in North America and until Feb 6th anywhere else, as, maddeningly, they’re only giving one rebroadcast at a civilised hour for us in Europe – Feb 6 at 3pm EST which is 8pm in Europe. On Jan 26th it’s 7pm EST, no rebroadcast. Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene – Soul to Soul Click here for tickets “During the darkest days, we sing. When light shines upon us, we sing. While seeking justice and answers, we sing. This musical tradition is one shared among African Americans and Jews for centuries. It is in the music of Soul to Soul, National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s annual Martin Luther King Day commemoration concert, that we find and give voice to our common experiences: a history of oppression, struggles for justice, finding humor in pain, passion for faith, and joy in community.” Tonight, Monday, Jan 18th, Martin Luther King Day, and for the next four days, New York’s Folksbiene Theater presents the annual event known as Soul to Soul. This electrifying and emotionally captivating theatrical concert explores the parallels of African American and Jewish history, a journey from deep oppression to hope, employing centuries of musical traditions of Ashkenazi Jews and African Americans. In the lyrics and music, this concert deepens connections and celebrates differences. For more information check the website. Jan 18-22 $12. Feast and Fast: The Art of Food in Europe 1500-1800 Click here for tickets Food and art – two of my favourite subjects. Images of food have been recurrent themes in European art, revealing how it was produced, prepared and presented, not only for everyday eating, but also for fabulous feasting or frugal fasting. Dr Victoria Avery, Keeper of Applied Arts at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, co-curated the Fitzwilliam’s critically acclaimed exhibition on this subject, and in this feast for the eyes, exploring the representation of food and eating in Renaissance and Baroque art, she will share insights into how the exhibits, including stunning special creations, were chosen and displayed. It’s on Thursday, can’t wait for this one. 21 Jan 2021 6pm £10 Metropolitan Nightly Opera Stream Click here to watch This week’s Met Opera wallow is all about the ladies – Violetta, Lucia, Tosca, Carmen, Norma, Brunnehilde – and, inevitably, the ladies who sing them. I can’t resist an evening with Deborah Voigt’s Brunnhilde, even if I also have to put up with Robert LePage’s tedious production of Wagner’s Die Walkure to do it. Compensation comes in the form of a dream cast. Not only Voigt but also Jonas Kaufmann, Stephanie Blythe and Bryn Terfel as Wotan. Here’s Anna Netrebko’s artfully blood-covered Lucia, and what about Hildegarde Behrens’ 1985 Tosca? Anita Rachvelishvili isn’t my favourite Carmen but this production by Richard Eyre is worth seeing for Anita Hartig’s delicate, heart-stopping Michaela. Natalie Dessay’s Violetta is perfectly good but the main reason to watch this Traviata is the opportunity to hear again the late Dmitri Hvorostovsky sing a perfect Germont. I first heard the astonishing Sondra Radvanovsky in this 2014 production of Bellini's Norma. I'd never heard of her before but friends were saying, “not since Callas”. Lisette Orapesa, a young, fresh Cuban-American soprano, leads the cast in this rather peculiar 2019 Manon. So this week is all about the divas. Carol Channing and Betty White - Bosum Buddies Click here to watch Talking of divas, I do love a theatre legend. So, to finish off this week, here are two. Here is Betty White, 99 this week, and the late Carol Channing, 97 at the time, with Jerry Herman’s Bosom Buddies from Mame. Even through this technical fog you can see how they got to be legends. Divas, even.
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AuthorRuth Leon is a writer and critic specialising in music and theatre. Archives
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