Performance of the Year: PS22 Chorus singing “Dragon” for Tori Amos

With a single video, the kids chorus of PS22 (check ‘em out on our blog roll) on Staten Island became internet celebrities, and proved that children’s voices can make even the most vagi-centric song sound like an anthem for world peace.

Outrageous Moment of the Year: Ann Liv Young and Family’s “The Radio Show” @ Rush Arts

Let’s just say, if dance aficionados out there are questioning whether or not Ann Liv Young is a choreographer, wait till they try to digest her parental habits. The inclusion of her four day-old infant as a performer/prop at the Rush Arts gallery back in September made this critic nervous and prompted our second most-read posts ever!

Dance of the Year: Jerome Bel’s “Pichet Klunchun and myself” @ DTW

Fuck. This one was tough. Just so’s you know, the short list included…David Neumann’s Feedforward (hot), Tere O’Connor’s Rammed Earth (cool), Batsheva’s Three (fierce), and Jeremy Wade’s first ensemble piece …and pulled out their hair (crazy!). But somebody had to win, and, more than Bel’s lyric conceptualism and sophisticated execution, the heartfelt emphasis on civil understanding tipped the scales.

Best Orchestral Performance of the Year: Pierre Boulez and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra @ Carnegie Hall

Seriously, the best sound out of an orchestra we have ever heard in our entire lives, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 is no cakewalk. Some people think a teenage muppet bouncing off the podium is what will save concert music. Boulez kind of proved that its really music of the highest caliber that will save it, that is, if anything needs saving.

Best Opera of the Year: “The Marriage of Figaro” @ The Met

We’re going with our gut on this one. As much as we wanted to give this to Carmen (just cuz it was so much fun), The Met’s Le Nozze di Figaro wins the prize for its truly sophisticated set design and solid cast–including lispy American starlet Lisette Oropesa and the awesome Vanke Vondung in her Met debut–and for keeping opera alive and full of the breath of theater.

Best Theater Experience: Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s “No Dice”

If we hadn’t seen this little mini-masterpiece of theater just two weeks ago, we would have given this award to Mexican company Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes’ De Monstruos y Prodigios, which was a riotous tour de force that questioned beauty, fame, and fashion. But the sweethearts of the zany Nature Theater of Oklahoma won us over with their child-like exuberance and mad acting skills. The Wooster Group’s Hamlet was a close third, but, to be honest, we’re still digesting that one. I mean…we didn’t even blog about it.

Let Down of the Year: Yvonne Rainer’s “RoS Indexical”

Is it possible to write too much about a bad thing? Maybe. Click here for the the uber list of posts we dedicated to this let-down of the millennium, or what we’ve dubbed “The Yvonne Rainer Drainer.” This thing was an SBD all the way, and it doesn’t help its cause when certain douche bags try to rush to Rainer’s defense.

Let Down of the Year – Honorary Mention: Lucia Poop, Beethoven Compressed, Dismantled, Doll Parts, and the choreography for Harry Partch’s Delusion of the Fury at Japan Society: It was just…awful.

YouTube of the Year: She without arm, he without leg – ballet – Hand in Hand

“Dancing For Your Limbs” is the perhaps more (in)appropriate title. Either way, this glorious number is set to a song that won’t leave you (…ever), and is cheered on by perhaps one of the most actively disinterested audiences on record.

Top Post of the Year: FIRST WORD REVIEW, The Met’s “Iphigenie en Tauride”

Who the F knew that a review of a new production of an obscure Gluck opera by The Met would bring down the most hits out of any post we have ever written, far surpassing the other front runners, the aforementioned, and…the little post that could.

Newcomer Critic of the Year: Britney

Despite stellar contributions to this site from Sidekick and L.A. correspondent, Benn Widdey, the Newcomer Critic of the Year Award goes to Britney Spears for her candid, gum-smacky, and mostly sober cameo critique of Elliott Carter’s 99th Birthday/music concert at the Miller Theater.

Douche of the Year: Alastair Macaulay

Whether he’s trodding up to Lincoln Center for an evening to mainline more ballet than most humans could possibly ever digest in an entire lifetime, lecturing little Barnard dancers about the future of an illusion, or whether he’s whisping off away to Paris for like…ever, handing over some prime media real estate to the French for some inexplicable reason (seriously, folks, what’s up with that?), Alastair Macaulay is the dance critic we love to hate, and hate to love. He’s received both awards of praise and the big old douche. And, to tell the truth, his awful writing about Merce Cunningham, way back when, is what inspired us to start this blog. Perhaps we can say then that, like Golum, even the creepiest, slimiest, smelliest creature in Middle Earth can still be responsible for a modicum of good in the world.

Critic of the Year: Claudia La Rocco

Is anyone surprised? I mean, seriously, come on! You know, we may have given her a douche and a half over the past seven months (you know we did it out of love), but the fact remains that her writing on dance (and even a little theater) is the sharpest, most insightful you will find. Not only does she tend to go for the really edgy shit, but she expects the highest level of professionalism from artists and isn’t smoke-screened by reputations or hype. She also totally knows how to take down some god-awful piece of shit in like two seconds flat. And even though we accused her of being old and crusty (which, you know, we might have been not right about), she’s turned out to be a critic (with a darling speaking voice) we love to read and write about, and our affection for her work has even landed her one of the most awesome nom de blogs out there: You can call her L. Ro.

And now, the award you’ve all been waiting for…

Blog of the Year: Counter Critic

We told you not to be surprised. I mean, think of it this way. In that one America’s Next Top Model episode, there were like four chicks left, and scary Tyra asked each of them, one at a time, who had the most potential to be America’s Next Top Model, and like, the only one who didn’t say herself, totally got the boot (probably a Prada boot, still a boot). So, we’re shining with vaseline confidence here and giving our blog the biggest award there is out there ever in the entire history of human awards (that even includes the Gold, Frankincense and Mhyr that the baby Jesus won from the wisemen). Thanks to our gloriously bored-at-work readers for keeping loyal and chatty. Douches to all who got catty. And try not to forget us while we go on vaca. We might even check in every now and then. And maybe, if you’ve bought presents for everyone else this year, you can treat yourself to the Counter Critic RSS Feed, which will let you know each and every time we decide to post something awesome and stupid. Do it for yourself. Do it for the world.

Happy Holidays, everyone.

When I was a wee Sidekick, my family wasn’t all that into classical music, and somehow I managed to go thirty years without bumping elbows with any version of George Bizet’s Carmen. My fam did, however, watch a lot of sitcoms. Thus, it was deliciously exciting when the overture started for New York City Opera’s revival of the uber-opera and the music from every mediocre sitcom chase scene filled the New York State Theater—weee! During the Toreador song in the second act, I had to bite my tongue to keep from singing.

Having no knowledge of the story beforehand, the tale of love/hate lovers still resonated for me despite the 1875 sell date. Who hasn’t wanted to stab a significant other? And how can you not love a buxom, brunette gypsy in love with the idea of being in love?

While the translation of the French is broadcast in limited subtitles above the stage, Beth Clayton’s Carmen conveys the complicated anti-heroine with easily accessible gestures—an eye roll perfectly illustrates Carmen’s annoyance at her lover’s ex-girlfriend who uses his sick mother to lure him back home: a rigid spine conveys her brazen decision to confront her jealous paramour despite her giggly girlfriends pleas she avoid him.

As her obsessed lover, Don Jose (played by Scott Piper) is less facile to understand. While his emotional turmoil registers clearly in the second act where he gives into Carmen’s sexy castanets dance and decides to leave his military station and run away with her band of gypsies, his motivations seem less clear as his love spirals into a kind of hatred toward the object of his affection. While I wanted to believe his final rage-driven act, I wasn’t sure he’d earned the right to call Carmen both a demon and his beloved.

Far more dynamic is Don Jose’s rival, played by Carlos Archuleta, who owns the stage with his strong baritone each time his bullfighting Escamillo sashays on the scene to swing his cape and woo the women.

Though the acoustics of the New York State Theater seemed a little dodgy—at points the principals voices were hard to hear even from only a few rows back in the orchestra—the back-up singers (do we call them that in opera) were lively and engaging. A children’s chorus even managed a well-choreographed dance number without the usual creepy haunted quality of short people in symmetry. Paul Shortt’s sets are also a little iffy. The desolate, rundown cityscape seems at odds with the Eduardo V. Sicangco decadent costumes, especially the be-jeweled gowns worn by the woman in the bullfight.

But overall, I give it a big old yes: So much better than all those sitcom chase scenes.

“Carmen” will be performed again TONIGHT, and various nights through November 17.

Now read what Counter Critic had to say…

Carmen is like heroine. It is no wonder why Nietzsche used this opera to delineate his philosophical split from Wagner. The moment the overture begins, you want to bounce in your seat, tap your toes, sing along. It is full of some of the most memorable musical numbers in the history of western music, and the ease with which it encourages the audience to enjoy is a remarkable achievement. If you’ve never been to an opera, and would like to set foot in the vast, churning waters, seeing Carmen is the perfect place to start, and New York City Opera’s current production will convince you that going to the opera can be a thoroughly enjoyable night out at the theater.

This is not to say that there is anything particularly remarkable about this production (Joseph Rescigno is the conductor, Jonathan Eaton is credited with production, and Cynthia Edwards with stage direction). Much like this season’s Don Giovanni (directed by Hal Prince), you get the bare essentials of what an opera is expected to look like–fanciful, period costumes amid enormously conceived sets–which orients your perception to the story that is about to unfold. It is precisely this commitment to storytelling that makes these productions perfect for the novice operagoers, although for anyone hoping for a more adventurous theatrical interpretation, this Carmen will come up just short.

But right away, the opera swings into action. Jennifer Black, as the milk-skinned force of wholesomeness who is sent by Don Jose’s mother to bring him back to his hometown, is so convincing, both theatrically and vocally, that you can’t imagine not feeling like an irresponsible dolt around her. Black’s tone is bright and full, sweet and lyrical. Quite in contrast to Scott Piper’s Don Jose, which throughout the night struggled with unevenness. Sometimes the tone was splotchy, particularly when he was pushing; then, he even had a tendency to sharp. But when he relaxed, you could hear moments of real greatness, particularly in the aria, La fleur que tu m’avais jetée, where Don Jose convinces Carmen that he loves her.

Beth Clayton, as the heroine–of the opera–is a full-bodied, barefoot force of womanhood. Her physical command of the stage was near flawless. It was exactly this physical embodiment that made moments like her use of castanets while singing Je vais danser en votre honneu purely awesome. Vocally, she was strong throughout the night, although with her particular voice type, there is a little damper over the tone, which makes it sound as if it’s projecting from behind her, rather than forward from her face. It is still a large instrument, with perfect intonation, but, even for a mezzo, there is something unbrilliant about its quality. There were also a lot of straight-tone vocal tricks that she would employ to add character to the voice, but I would have preferred a more direct approach to the music. Nonetheless, Clayton is quite a Carmen to behold, even if she is a little full of her Carmen.

The scene-stealer–as I imagine is designed to be–is the toreador, Escamillo, played here by Carlos Archuleta in his New York City Opera debut. And Archuleta stole the show, and my heart. His positively arrogant presence is both a refreshment from Carmen’s particular ilk of stubbornness (which is what ultimately dooms her), and is a respite from Don Jose’s muddled, self-conscious and repressed masculine angst. (On a side note, it is kind of weird to see a toreador sing the word “toreador” as many times as Escamillo does in the beloved Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre–or, The Toreador Song.) Archuleta’s perfect baritone communicated the rich confidence, free of the moral anxiety that aflicts the other characters in the opera. I could listen to him all night and forever and still have room for more. Please, City Opera execs, bring Archuleta back for me. (And pass him my info if you run into him backstage…)

The cast is rounded out by a remarkable group of tertiary characters. Anya Matanovic and Priti Gandhi delighted as Carmen’s gypsy cohorts, and Jeremy Little and Kyungmook Yum were a comic duo as the pair of smugglers.

The orchestra played sufficiently under the baton of Joseph Rescino. Although, it would be difficult to screw up this music, which is so readily accessible, simple and charming that even played badly, would still sound pretty good. Do I need to bemoan, yet again, the deplorable acoustics of the State Theater?

Yet for any of the deficiencies this production might have, and there are really only very few, the opera itself is a must-see, so it surprised me to see that the audience wasn’t more robust on Friday night. If opera is theater, then it has the ability to feel like theater, which can carry one away, delight the ear, make you laugh and bounce in your seat, fill your heart with longing and your spirit with tragedy, all in the name of–dare we say–entertainment. Carmen does this, and so does this production.

“Carmen” will be performed again TONIGHT, and various nights through November 17.

Now read what Sidekick had to say…

Anytime a contemporary writer chooses to screw with a time-honored text, it begs the question, does this retelling say something innovative or is it just fucking with a classic.

As a disclaimer when I was a wee sidekick, my favoritist book in the world was a giant volume of classic mythology that I stole from the library and kept under my bed, and each night I would haul it out and read all about the gods and goddesses up there on Mount Olympus messing around with the mortals—I liked the original. I brought this baggage with me to the Peter Norton Space for The Signature Theater Company’s Iphigenia 2.0.

In the original Iphigenia, Agamemnon or one of his peeps did something to piss off one of the gods so the big guys and gals upstairs want Ag to slice and dice his daughter Iphigenia before the army can sail to Troy so battles between Brad Pitt and Eric Bana can ensue. In order to get the murder ball rolling, Ag lures little Iphi to Aulis saying that she’s to wed Achilles.

In Mee’s Iphigenia there are no Gods, and it’s the soldiers who want Agamemnon (played by Tom Nelis) to hack up Iphigenia (Louisa Krause) as a way to show he’s willing to make personal sacrifices, before they’ll trek thousands of miles away to kill and be killed in a war that’s largely unimportant to them. Hmm that sound familiar. . .

To make sure everyone gets that he is comparing the suit-and-tie-wearing-I-never-served-a-day-in-the-military Agamemnon to George W. Bush, Mee outfits the soldiers in U.S.-flag-bearing army fatigues. And to make sure that everyone gets that even though this is some nebulous time it’s really now, he gives Iphi and her girls dialogue about bachelorette parties in present day L.A. and a hunger for a certain kind of tabloid fame.

It’s Mee’s thing (I read post show) to incorporate a variety of found texts—in this case leadership diatribes and military musings by Richard Heckler, Wilfred Owen, Richard Holmes, and Anthony Swafford—but I found myself constantly distracted trying to follow Mee’s allegorical map and put the pieces together. If Iphigenia is about present day US, why are we in Greece? If it’s ancient Greece, why do the soldiers get all rape-y around the girls and start quoting a book of decorum from George Washington? If we’re not using Euripides’ text, why does the language have to be stilted and backassswards? It doesn’t help that each time larger thematic point is touched upon—differences between the sexes, nobility in combat, the vapid concerns of young women–the channel is quickly changed and there’s some tangential dance number—yes dance number. The troops scale walls and belt out spiritual diddies in the trenches. Iphigenia’s gal pals sing and slink around in corsets. Both the men and the woman inexplicably and gratuitously run around in their underwear. The cast does a decent job with the physically demanding roles, and the choreographed numbers look good, but almost all the characterization happens off stage. Why does Agamemnon decide not to murder his daughter? What makes Iphigenia embrace martyrdom? Why does Achilles not decide to save the life of his bride-to-be? Mee offers no answers and we must assume that all that character development stuff took place during the production numbers.

The exception is Iphigenia’s overbearing mother Clytemnestra, played by Kate Mulgrew, whose love for her husband visibly turns when she finds out his plan. Not only do Mulgrew’s emotions register but she also nails the humor “instructing” Achilles how to do the wedding rumba ala Mrs. Robinson and advising her daughter’s bridesmaids to never compare a bride’s wedding to their own imaginary one. But with her booming voice and big gestures, she seems permanently stuck in a different play than the others—perhaps a straight revival of the original Iphigenia without the dance numbers to LL Cool J?

In the show’s close, the soldiers and bridesmaids throw a tarp over the grief-stricken Clytemnestra and thrash, smash plates, hurl confetti, and throw cake around her—much like Mee throws glitter and jazz hands and tangential texts all around Euripedes’ play.

Now read what Counter Critic had to say…