Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

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Sparring with the Ultimate

There’s never been a more brilliant exemplar of the ballet art than George Balanchine.
Boston Ballet in The Four Temperaments, Apollo, and Theme and Variations
By MARICA B. SIEGEL | May 14, 2010

George Balanchine was famous for “non-story” ballets, but when you put three of his works — the usual number to fill up an evening — together, you always get some kind of narrative.
Boston Ballet’s ‘Ultimate Balanchine’
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 14, 2010

All you need is love

Outpourings of love have been flooding the Boston musical scene.
Marylou Speaker Churchill memorial, Emmanuel Music’s Haydn/Schoenberg, and more
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | April 23, 2010

Here’s looking at you

Set in the usual small village — this one in the Carpathian Mountains of Eastern Europe — Coppélia might look like just another pleasant 19th-century ballet about a boy, a girl, and another girl. But appearances can be deceiving — and that’s theme of
Boston Ballet sees into the heart of Coppélia
By JEFFREY GANTZ | April 09, 2010

Reeling in the years

Call John Pizzarelli a mensch — he's smart, chatty, and a hot ticket. Hell of a guitarist, too.
John Pizzarelli keeps jazz moving on
By JIM MACNIE | February 26, 2010

Plugging in

For the past six years, Festival Ballet Providence has presented an evening of short works, Up Close on Hope , in their Black Box Theater on Hope Street.
Festival Ballet move to Metallica and Radiohead
By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | November 20, 2009

Blessings: mixed and otherwise

By odd coincidence, in recent weeks we’ve had performances of two important operatic rarities, landmark early works a century apart: 30-year-old Handel’s Amadigi (1715) and 20-year-old Rossini’s Tancredi (1813, his 10th opera!).
Boston Baroque’s Amadigi; Opera Boston’s Tancredi; the BSO’s Beethoven; the Borromeo’s Bartók; Brahms from BCMS and BSOCP
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 30, 2009

Providence Fall Preview Listings 2009

A page of listings for local music, theater, art, festivals and more this fall.
Music, theater, art, festivals and more in the coming months
By PHOENIX STAFF | September 18, 2009

String vacation

With the Portland Symphony's elimination of its popular, but debt-inducing, Independence Pops concert series, Portlanders will have to travel a little farther to satisfy their classical-music appetites this summer. But it will be well worth the mileage
Soundtrack for summer in Maine
By EMILY PARKHURST | July 10, 2009

Trail of tunes

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.
Music al fresco at summer fests
By CLEA SIMON | June 12, 2009

Dark night of the soul

St. Petersburg's Eifman Ballet presents Eugene Onegin at the Cutler Majestic Theatre this weekend.
Boris Eifman's Eugene Onegin
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 15, 2009

The real deal

Nineteenth-century ballets are not all alike. But Boston Ballet's Sleeping Beauty is the real McCoy.
Boston Ballet's Sleeping Beauty
By BY MARCIA B. SIEGEL | May 01, 2009

Brava Larissa!

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.
Boston Ballet opens The Sleeping Beauty
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 01, 2009

Home cooking

If the name "National Philharmonic of Russia" puts you in mind of some provincial Slavic ensemble making the American rounds, you're not alone.
The National Philharmonic of Russia at Symphony Hall
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 01, 2009

More Jewels

Get your Jewels bearings

By JEFFREY GANTZ | March 04, 2009

Crowning glory

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.
Boston Ballet's Jewels
By JEFFREY GANTZ | February 27, 2009

Quiz-bowl kids

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

Year in Classical: Celebrate!

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.
Comings and goings
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 22, 2008

Mixed nuts

Ballet Rox's Urban Nutcracker , the ultimate multicultural Christmas celebration, has become so inclusive, it's almost a blur.
Ballet Rox's Urban Nutcracker
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | December 16, 2008

Not so great

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.
San Francisco's Nutcracker on PBS
By JEFFREY GANTZ | December 02, 2008

Over (and under) the top

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.
Musical chairs at the BSO, the Pacifica at Longy, the Boston Philharmonic's three B's, and the Cecilia's Bach B-minor Mass
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 24, 2008

Vertical energy

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.
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.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | November 14, 2008

Can classical be underground?

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.
Portsmouth's Navona Records releases an indie aesthetic for orchestra
By SAM PFEIFLE | November 12, 2008

Intimate moves

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.
Festival Ballet’s “Up CLOSE, on HOPE”
By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | November 05, 2008

Magic bullets

Last week’s Boston Symphony Orchestra program looked odd on paper, but the concert was a knockout.
Maurizio Pollini returns to the BSO; Opera Boston’s Der Freischütz
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 21, 2008

Suburban Mozart that swings

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.
Lexington Symphony at Cary Hall, Lexington, MA, September 13, 2008
By JEFFREY GANTZ | October 03, 2008

Opening pitch

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
James Levine’s gala and Brahms, Russell Sherman’s Liszt, the Bostonians’ Kurt Weill
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 01, 2008

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