Witnessing even a competent staging of Hamlet is like wandering through a magnificent museum of theatre art. At every side gleams a phrase, a character, an image, a confrontation; all elements of such quality that some lesser light might make a comfortable career from just one or two. “Something is... Read more »

Not only has the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio managed to stay together as a performing piano trio for 40 years, but from their SummerFest performance Sunday (August 13), it is clear they have lost neither the brilliance nor acuity upon which their estimable reputation rests. To a very traditional program of Mendelssohn... Read more »

In The Drowsy Chaperone, a nerdy little man in a cardigan describes his theater obsession. Whenever he plays an old vinyl record, outrageous characters from a forgotten musical appear in his bland apartment. There’s a corny romantic plot in this witty and entertaining parody presented by Premiere Productions at Welk... Read more »

Christoph Willibald Gluck is one of those opera composers who is remembered today for a single hit opera, Orpheus and Eurydice, even though as a composer of operas he was both successful and prolific. Verismo heroes Mascagni and Leoncavallo are two other similar single-hit opera composers who instantly come to... Read more »

Marisa Matthews, Jason Maddy and cast members of Evita. (Photos courtesy of Daren Scott.)Four years have passed since the last collaboration between the San Diego Repertory Theatre and the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts. Previous stagings of Hairspray, The Who’s Tommy and In the Heights were met... Read more »

In addition to La Jolla SummerFest’s formal evening concerts, the festival also offers a few noontime concerts with a more relaxed approach at the La Jolla Athenaeum Music and Arts Library. The articulate and ever perceptive program annotater Eric Bromberger hosted Thursday’s (August 10) event that featured the Ulysses Quartet... Read more »

Most 19th-century European composers thought they had a clear notion of what Hungarian music was like, and the marking “all’ Ongarese” (“in the Hungarian style”) on musical scores became common. Not until composers Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók made extensive ethnomusicological forays into the remote villages of the Hungarian countryside... Read more »

The cast of San Diego Musical Theatre’s ‘Pump Up the Volume: a ’90s Palooza’ shows its true – uh – colors. Photos by Ken Jacques.Saturday, Aug. 12 marks the 23rd anniversary of the start of Woodstock ‘94, designed to emulate the 1969 mother of all concerts and billed as “two... Read more »

Although festival planners pray for new music that is both striking and audience friendly, finding that enviable combination is always a challenge. That may explain the confident enthusiasm with which SummerFest Director Cho-Liang Lin introduced Finnish composer Olli Mustonen to Sunday’s SummerFest audience at UC San Diego’s Conrad Prebys Concert... Read more »

Don’t go see Kill Local at the La Jolla Playhouse expecting any warmth or uplift. It’s all strictly business as an awkward moment turns ominous. The play has its moments of fun, if you like your comedy with un-cut cynicism and sprinkles of irony, but any feelgood comes from the... Read more »