Review: Il trovatore
There are two sides to every story, but it’s easy to pick a favorite when the fight is between a sniveling Count and a fiery gypsy. Verdi’s ever-popular Il trovatore, Houston Grand Opera’s last production of the season, shows why revenge is something to savor. First performed in Rome in 1853, the music in this opera is structured very differently from Wagner’s [...]
Read MoreReview: Selkie, A Sea Tale
The origin of a myth has its roots in the earth as much as the soul of a people. Thus, it makes sense that the legends of the half-human/half-seal Selkie creatures hark from the Northern British isles, a place where sea merges with land, and where sea has consumed the land. It’s no wonder then [...]
Read MoreReview: Tristan and Isolde
Can you bear the burden of love? With a love beginning in rapture, malice, bliss, and deception that finally eases into sweet death, Houston Grand Opera presents Wagner’s legendary Tristan and Isolde, with extraordinary attention to the emotional angst inherent in this opera. Tristan and Isolde marks the final repertory in HGO’s 2012-2013 season, with [...]
Read MoreReview: Quiver
Dance and film are joined by movement as camera and body come together. Frame Dance Productions’ newest offering, Quiver, makes the most of that fact. Frame Dance artistic director Lydia Hance navigates a dual career track, exploring both film and live performance, and the intersection of both. Quiver opens with an oscillating pulse of a [...]
Read MoreBroke-ology
Broke-ology is the science of being broke and trying to survive,” says Ennis King to his younger brother Malcolm in Nathan Louis Jackson’s absorbing Broke-ology, on stage at the Ensemble Theatre (through April 14). While that may be Ennis’ self-styled definition of it all, the play is much more about ways that we’re broke: monetarily, [...]
Read MoreMike Beradino: Crystal Palace
Remember the first time you punched in “07734” on a calculator only to flip it upside down to show your math classmate the word “hello”? One of the simplest forms of digital manipulation, this elementary school trick transforms numerals into the most basic interaction: a greeting. Mike Beradino’s exhibition Crystal Palace at Lawndale Art Center [...]
Read MoreJonathan Leach: Time Does Not Exist Here
An ongoing local parlor game, in which participants try to locate the Houston in Houston art and ask whether there is such a thing, reared its head again in recent months when Houston painters Aaron Parazette and Howard Sherman curated group shows of work by local colleagues and protégés. (Some galleries declined to let their [...]
Read MoreGeoff Hippenstiel: Territorial Pissings
Much has been made – by me as well as others – of the way Houston artist Geoff Hippenstiel moves between figuration and abstraction in paintings that combine over-the-top impasto with metallic silver or gold spray paint. In his second solo outing at Devin Borden Gallery, Hippenstiel turns that movement into a five-part narrative on [...]
Read MoreHouston Ballet: The Rite of Spring
Off the Floor: Houston Ballet soars again in a trio of works by Stanton Welch, Edwaard Liang and Mark Morris As I rushed past a gaggle of squawking grackles on my way to the show, little did I know the real flock was inside as Houston Ballet took flight in Edwaard Liang’s soaring new ballet, [...]
Read MoreReview: Cocksucker Blues
Robert Frank’s Cocksucker Blues is anything but a traditional rock and roll documentary. Frank’s work has been archived and distributed by the MFAH since 1986. In 1972, The Rolling Stones commissioned Frank to document their tour, but the Stones didn’t approve the final cut. It never saw a commercial release, but a few showings a [...]
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