Review: RENT IN CONCERT at The Kennedy Center
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In 2021, he was named the winner of the Graduate Concerto Competition at the University of Michigan. Studies at Michigan, he was selected as a national finalist in the 2019 National Association of Negro Musicians convention. In his undergraduate studies at Northern Arizona University, he was selected as a finalist for two consecutive years in the Rocky Mountain District for MONC auditions.
Back to the Future: The Musical at Kennedy Center [Opera House] Washington, DC 2024 - BroadwayWorld
Back to the Future: The Musical at Kennedy Center [Opera House] Washington, DC 2024.
Posted: Thu, 11 Jan 2024 13:06:24 GMT [source]
Angela Meade
Her numerous engagements also led her to the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Semperoper Dresden. With Lucrezia in a concert performance of I due Foscari, she madeher highly noticed debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2017. The Kennedy Center should be commended for presenting this once in a lifetime musical experience celebrating the work of the musical genius that is Jonathan Larson. A cultural pop phenomenon, initial audience members grew up with this amazing rock opera and they are nostalgic for these songs and music --- hopefully, this concert will tour widely, and a new generation can see what all the very justified fuss is about! Ali Stroker delivered a knockout comedic performance replete with theatrically polished embellishments and timing in the witty “Over the Moon”.
Turandot
His appearances throughout the country as a speaker on a variety of cultural and educational topics are widely praised. Mr. Thomas’s “ardent expression and spine-tingling high notes” (Cincinnati Enquirer) have been heard in the Verdi Requiem with the New York Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Washington, D.C. He joined the Met Orchestra for their first overseas tour in more than 20 years, singing Otello opposite Angel Blue at Carnegie Hall, Philharmonie de Paris, Barbican Centre, and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. As resident fight director for Central City Opera, he staged numerous productions there between 2008 and 2014, including Dead Man Walking, Carmen, Madama Butterfly, West Side Story, Oklahoma! And Rinaldo, while also serving as the stage combat instructor for the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Artists Training Program.
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Tickets
The sensational Angela Meade takes on the iconic title role, with Russell Thomas as her fearless suitor and Guanqun Yu as the woman who shows everyone the true meaning of ultimate devotion. Music Director James Conlon conducts Puccini's thrilling final masterpiece, one that has had audiences leaping to their feet for a century, with ravishing stage designs by David Hockney that embrace the spectacle of Turandot's fairytale mystery and magic. Mr. Boniello’s vocals on “One Song Glory”, ‘Your Eyes” and his musical moments with Ms. Courtney were vigorous and exciting. In Puccini’s unfinished 1924 opera, the eponymous princess asks potential suitors to answer three questions to win her hand; a wrong answer means death.
Russell Thomas
The “feel” of the music seemed to range from rock to quasi -operatic and onwards to quasi -novelty songs to ballads. “No Day but Today” and “Live for Today” is a continual musical motif/refrain amidst the chaos and apocalyptic ambience of the characters living on the edge with HIV, addiction, and economic pressures (it feels like a sin to use the term “characters” as the individuals given to us in this book by Larson are such real individuals that easily remind one of people one might know). Though the influence of the opera La bohème is well known to be underlying the book of this influential “rock opera”, the multi-talented Jonathan Larson has written a work that only grows in power and relevancy.

After internships with Hal Prince and Leonard Bernstein in the early 1990’s, he joined the staffs of the Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Dallas Opera, and Opera Colorado. His award-winning production of La Cenerentola for Kansas City has traveled to Austin, Orlando, and Madison. Known especially for his large-scale work of the standard repertoire, he has created stagings of Turandot, Carmen, Tosca, Aida, Pagliacci and La Bohème that have been seen coast to coast.
Future seasons include appearances in Berlin, London, Toronto, Chicago, Houston, New York, and Washington, D.C. With a “heroically shining tone of exceptional clarity and precision” (Opera magazine) and “gorgeously burnished power” (The New York Times), American tenor Russell Thomas uses his signature elegance and intensity to create vivid character portrayals on the world’s most important stages. Turandot is a masterpiece that contains imagined, outdated and inaccurate representations of Asian culture. LA Opera has worked in consultation with the Asian Opera Alliance, who have offered input on how to present the work with greater consciousness, care and context, while maintaining fidelity to the original opera and this classic 1992 David Hockney production. Monumental Theatre Company will stage Duncan Sheik and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s American Psycho this summer.
Shows and Performance:
He returns in February 2022 for performances including Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony and the final scene of Wagner’s Die Walküre, with guest artists Christine Goerke and Greer Grimsley. The BSO season concludes in June 2022 with Mr. Conlon conducting an orchestra co-commission from Wynton Marsalis, Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with Beatrice Rana, and Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony (“Leningrad”). As Artistic Advisor, in addition to leading these performances, Mr. Conlon will help ensure the continued artistic quality of the orchestra and fill many duties off the podium, including those related to artistic personnel—such as filling important vacancies and attracting exceptional musicians.
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Stroker was also sublime in a different vein as she sang with passion and defiance in “Take Me or Leave Me”. Rent in Concert proved that the music and lyrics of composer Jonathan Larson are inexhaustible in their richness and complexity. Larson’s beloved work moved the audience to tears, laughter and vigorous applause after each musical moment. The lush yet biting orchestrations by Sean O’Loughlin were played with sublime resonance and clarity by the National Symphony Orchestra aided by a top-notch group of theatrical talent---and aided by the superior acoustics of the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Conductor Steven Reineke conducted with sensitivity to the music and, concurrently, with a sparkling verve. The Orchestra is located on the lowest level of the theater and provides direct views of the stage.
Calaf rushes to strike the gong, thereby declaring his intention to pursue Turandot, but Ping, Pang and Pong, the Emperor’s ministers, intervene. They warn him that striking the gong leads to certain death, and Timur and Liù echo their entreaties while the ghosts of Turandot’s executed suitors egg Calaf on. Calaf tries to comfort her (“Non piangere, Liù”), but Liù only foresees certain death. Born in Washington, D.C., Bruce was a choirboy at Washington National Cathedral and holds degrees in English and drama from Tufts University.
Internationally recognized as one of today’s most versatile and respected conductors, James Conlon has cultivated a vast symphonic, operatic and choral repertoire. Since his 1974 debut with the New York Philharmonic, he has conducted virtually every major American and European symphony orchestra, and at many of the world’s leading opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera. Through worldwide touring, an extensive discography and filmography, numerous writings, television appearances, and guest speaking engagements, Conlon is one of classical music’s most recognized and prolific figures. Conlon has been Principal Conductor of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra in Torino, Italy (2016–20); Principal Conductor of the Paris Opera (1995–2004); General Music Director of the City of Cologne, Germany (1989–2003), simultaneously leading the Gürzenich Orchestra and the Cologne Opera; and Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (1983–91). Conlon was Music Director of the Ravinia Festival (2005–15), summer home of the Chicago Symphony, and is now Music Director Laureate of the Cincinnati May Festival―the oldest choral festival in the United States―where he was Music Director for 37 years (1979–2016), marking one of the longest tenures of any director of an American classical music institution.
He was also seen as Conrado in a workshop performance of Long Season by Chay Yew and Fabian Obispo, as part of Huntington Theatre Company’s Breaking Ground Festival. Ahn attended the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied with the world-renowned tenor Vinson Cole and performed a wide range of operatic roles. Versatile tenor Julius Ahn delights audiences around the world with his unique interpretations. He regularly appears at the Metropolitan Opera, where he is a graduate of the Lindemann Young Artist Program. He debuted there in a production of Fidelio and has since appeared as Sarastro in The Magic Flute (both in the original production and in the children’s English version), Ferrando in Il Trovatore, the King in Aida, and in roles in Nabucco, Tannhäuser, and the new productions of Les Troyens and Salome. He has also appeared at the San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dallas Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Seattle Opera, LA Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Teatro alla Scala, Volksoper Wien, Opera Australia, and the Aix-en-Provence Festival.
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