Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

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Trail of tunes

Music al fresco at summer fests
The best summer music festivals take something from the season: the smell of the surf, the sight of the mountains, fireworks, lawn seating — or, at least, fried dough.
By CLEA SIMON | June 09, 2009

Dark night of the soul

Boris Eifman's Eugene Onegin
St. Petersburg's Eifman Ballet presents Eugene Onegin at the Cutler Majestic Theatre this weekend.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 08, 2009

The real deal

Boston Ballet's Sleeping Beauty
Nineteenth-century ballets are not all alike. But Boston Ballet's Sleeping Beauty is the real McCoy.
By BY MARCIA B. SIEGEL | April 29, 2009

Brava Larissa!

Boston Ballet opens The Sleeping Beauty
The end of an era loomed last night as Boston Ballet opened The Sleeping Beauty — what's likely to be the last story ballet ever to be staged at the Wang Theatre.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | April 29, 2009

Home cooking

The National Philharmonic of Russia at Symphony Hall
If the name "National Philharmonic of Russia" puts you in mind of some provincial Slavic ensemble making the American rounds, you're not alone.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | April 23, 2009

More Jewels

Get your Jewels bearings
By JEFFREY GANTZ | March 04, 2009

Crowning glory

Boston Ballet's Jewels at the Wang Theatre.
In 1967, George Balanchine created Jewels for New York City Ballet, and in short order this evening-length triptych — Emeralds , Rubies , and Diamonds — became the crown jewel of 20th-century dance.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | March 04, 2009

Quiz-bowl kids

Harvard rebuilds its team and answers some hard questions
Andrew Watkins is having faulty-buzzer issues.
By CAITLIN E. CURRAN | January 08, 2009

Year in Classical: Celebrate!

Comings and goings
In Handel's Hercules, the demented Dejanira's loss is still so painful, I was afraid to listen; now I don't want to hear anything else.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 22, 2008

Mixed nuts

Ballet Rox's Urban Nutcracker
Ballet Rox's Urban Nutcracker , the ultimate multicultural Christmas celebration, has become so inclusive, it's almost a blur.
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | December 19, 2008

Not so great

San Francisco's Nutcracker on PBS
Way back in 1977, PBS gave us a Nutcracker with a difference: Mikhail Baryshnikov as an electrifying Nutcracker/Cavalier and willowy Gelsey Kirkland as an older-than-usual Clara, as the Sugar Plum Fairy.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | December 02, 2008

Over (and under) the top

Musical chairs at the BSO, the Pacifica at Longy, the Boston Philharmonic's three B's, and the Cecilia's Bach B-minor Mass
With only one rehearsal, 31-year-old BSO Assistant Conductor Julian Kuerti confronted a challenging two-and-a-half-hour program of not-quite-standard 19th- and 20th-century repertoire.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 24, 2008

Vertical energy

Irina Muresanu gave an emotionally compelling performance, even if her view of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto didn’t always jibe with conductor Jonathan McPhee’s.
The word “concerto” comes from the Italian for “to bring into agreement,” and it’s not always as easy as soloists and symphony orchestras make it seem.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | November 14, 2008

Can classical be underground?

Portsmouth's Navona Records releases an indie aesthetic for orchestra
At least one of the reasons many of us contemporary-music fans don't get into classical music is because it seems like no one wants us to listen to it.
By SAM PFEIFLE | November 14, 2008

Intimate moves

Festival Ballet’s “Up CLOSE, on HOPE”
What began as a way to give audiences a closer look at its dancers and choreographers an opportunity to showcase new work has become an integral part of Festival Ballet Providence’s season: the “Up CLOSE, on HOPE” series.
By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | November 05, 2008

Magic bullets

Maurizio Pollini returns to the BSO; Opera Boston’s Der Freischütz
Last week’s Boston Symphony Orchestra program looked odd on paper, but the concert was a knockout.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 24, 2008

Suburban Mozart that swings

Lexington Symphony at Cary Hall, Lexington, MA, September 13, 2008
It’s a tribute to the quality of Boston’s classical-music scene that a suburban orchestra like the Lexington Symphony is capable of a performance to attract the attention of those who live closer to Symphony Hall.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | October 09, 2008

Opening pitch

James Levine’s gala and Brahms, Russell Sherman’s Liszt, the Bostonians’ Kurt Weill
The most moving moment of this year’s Boston Symphony Orchestra opening gala came before the concert started — the standing ovation for James Levine, who looked rested and recuperated after his kidney surgery this summer, an operation that forced him to cancel most of his Tanglewood season.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 01, 2008

Russian, Spanish, American . . .

Music in all accents comes to the concert halls
What everyone is looking forward to this fall is the return to the podium of Boston Symphony Orchestra music director James Levine.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 11, 2008

Lukewarm

Trey McIntyre at the Pillow
Are we in the midst of a dance boom?
By JEFFREY GANTZ | August 27, 2008

North Shore's snazzy revival of contact

Plus, Gurnet’s Essential Self-Defense
For a Broadway show, contact is closer to Twyla Tharp than George M. Cohan.
By CAROLYN CLAY | June 17, 2008

Mastering the masterpieces

Boston Ballet takes on Balanchine, Tudor, and Tharp
It’s not exactly a trip down Memory Lane, but this weekend Boston Ballet is revisiting some pieces and choreographers it hasn’t performed in the Mikko Nissinen era.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 21, 2008

Big pond, little pond

Swan Lake in Boston and Providence
Swan Lake is ballet’s prima ballerina because, 131 years after its Moscow premiere, it’s still poised on pointe.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 07, 2008

Amateur overture

Harvard's Last Minute Orchestra takes on the 1812
Even at Harvard, with its many time-honored traditions, the best rituals involve kazoos. Lots of kazoos.
By BARRY THOMPSON | May 06, 2008

Oppositions

The Kirov's Balanchine at City Center
The end of a three-week, thousands-of-miles-from-home season is never the right time to assess a dance company.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | January 30, 2009

Love prevails

Festival Ballet’s emotional Swan Lake
Swan Lake is second only to The Nutcracker as a familiar entity for those with a nodding acquaintance of ballet.
By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | April 23, 2008

All over again

Brahms from Levine and Kissin, Emmanuel’s Bach B-minor Mass, the Cantata Singers’ Kurt Weill cabaret
The Boston Symphony Orchestra program for last week’s four concerts was a familiar one.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | April 15, 2008

Mexico City abuzz with Beantowners

A report from the International Mexico City Festival of Contemporary Cinema
Where’s New York? Where’s LA?
By GERALD PEARY | April 07, 2008

Pas de divorce

Opera House captures Boston Ballet’s heart
It’s been a roller-coaster six weeks at Boston Ballet.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | April 02, 2008

Russians on the run

Benjamin Zander and the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra at Sanders Theatre, February 24, 2008
Zander balanced the pathos and the passion here the way you have to balance the rose and the distaff/thorn in The Sleeping Beauty , and that was no small thing.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | February 26, 2008

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