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March 17, 2024
Keeping up with the dance scene in New York is hard enough when you live there. When your visits are sporadic, as mine have been since decamping from Manhattan to Maui thirteen years ago, it's impossible. In February, though, I hung around long enough for a deep plunge into the winter segment of the New York City Ballet's 75th-anniversary season.
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February 29, 2024 • Musical America
Having taken a first bow or two after his February 7 Carnegie Hall debut with J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations, Víkingur Ólafsson returned to the stage, produced a mic from his sleeve like a bunny from a hat, and directed the capacity crowd on its feet not to sit down. "I'm not a pastor," the Icelandic piano phenomenon of the 600 million career streams explained, eyes twinkling behind owlish glasses. There would be no encore, he told us; Bach's reprise of the opening aria after those stupendous 30 variations constitutes its own built-in encore. After that, what could possibly follow? Only Variation 1, and then where would we be? The loop would go on forever.
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February 29, 2024 • Classical Voice North America
February 27, 2024 • Musical America
Another season, another chance for a living choreographer or two to contribute something lasting to the legacy of the preternaturally prolific George Balanchine. Four decades after his death, the current six-week winter chapter of The New York City Ballet's 75th anniversary celebrations has showcased two challengers. On February 1, Tiler Peck, in her glory as one of the company's most distinctive principals, gave her house debut as a dance maker with Concerto for Two Pianos (seen February 4 and 20). Two weeks later, the company's newly appointed artist in residence Alexei Ratmansky took his turn with Solitude (seen at its premiere, February 15). In defiance of Balanchine's possibly apocryphal shibboleth, "Ballet is woman," each new entry centered on a lone male figure whose name appeared, alone, on the top line of the cast list.
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February 26, 2024 • Classical Voice North America
Brian d'Arcy James and Kelli O'Hara in one of the happier moments in the musical 'Days of Wine and Roses' (Photos by Joan Marcus)By being seldom seen, I could not stir But like a comet I was wondered at. —Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I
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