reviews
The opera ‘Hansel and Gretel’ bewitches the coven of the oven
November 21, 2018Hansel and Gretel may be the most enchanting, optically opulent opera ever seen at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, with its stellar stagecraft, stagemanship and eye-popping, jaw-dropping scenery.
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‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ popular Christmas movie, great new American opera
November 20, 2018It’s a critical hit, written in a popular late Romantic and thoroughly American idiom, studded with little musical quotes from familiar holiday noels, high school graduation anthems, and the wild Mekee-Mekee that recalls the dance crazes...
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New Documentaries at Toronto International Film Festival
November 15, 2018Reviews of "What You Gonna Do When the World's On Fire?", "What Is Democracy?", "Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferentz," "Anthropocene: The Human Epoch."
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‘Johnny Got His Gun’ on stage: I resist, therefore I am
October 23, 2018Joe Bonham is an all-American doughboy horribly dismembered and disfigured by enemy artillery at the frontlines in France. As Joe evolves, his determination to live intensifies, and his thoughts turn to the nature of what cut...
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‘Shrek the Musical’ a welcome, but brief guest in Ventura County
October 23, 2018These fairy tale people—like the children in the audience—finally have the opportunity to escape the imposed societal narrative they’ve been handed, of being a failed version of who they were meant to become.
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