Anaïs Mitchell wrote the book, music and lyrics for Hadestown. The show is directed by Rachel Chavkin (Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812). Hadestown actually began life as a concept record by Mitchell which was released in 2010. The premiere of the musical took place in 2016 at the New York Theatre Workshop (the same place where Rent had its premiere.)

As befits a musical based on these two myths, the show takes place on earth and in the underworld. The set (by Rachel Hauck) feels like we’re in a New Orleans venue much like Preservation Hall.

Reeve Carney (Penny Dreadful; Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark) plays Orpheus. Eva Noblezada (Miss Saigon revival) plays Eurydice. Patrick Page (Spring Awakening), who originated the role of Hades is currently filming, so Tom Hewitt (The Rocky Horror Show) assumes the part until Page returns on November 2nd. Amber Gray (Natasha, Pierre…) plays Persephone. André De Shields (The Full Monty) plays Hermes who serves as our guide through the story.

I got the feeling watching this show and witnessing the audience response that Hadestown is going to be the next hot show in New York. The music is terrific. The performances are uniformly great (including a trio of women called “Fate” who serve as sort of moral guardians in the musical). The choreography by David Neumann serves the story well. And Chavkin’s direction keeps the story moving and leaves you with numerous images that will linger long after the show is over.

It should also be noted that the instrumentation is sparse but energetic. The orchestra employs only seven musicians playing a piano, violin, cello, guitar, trombone, glockenspiel, double bass, drums and percussion. They are on stage and just as much a part of Hadestown as the cast.

Main photo: Eva Noblezada, André De Shields and Reeve Carney in “Hadestown.” All photos by Matthew Murphy

For tickets go here.

Update:  HADESTOWN won 8 Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Direction of a Musical, Best Score and Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical

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Their concert is being live-streamed for those who are unable to attend in person. If you’re a fan of great vocals and swinging jazz, this should be a thoroughly entertaining program.

Elling was recently named in the DownBeat International Critics Poll the Best Jazz Vocalist Male. In October he will release a new album called SuperBlue. The first single, Sassy, has already been released.

Elling has been awarded two Grammy Awards and has 14 nominations to his credit – so far. His most recent Grammy came for his 2020 album Secrets Are the Best Stories.

Charlap, whose most recent album was 2017’s Uptown, Downtown, will be joined for this concert by Carl Allen on drums; Steve Wilson on alto sax and David Wong on bass. He’s been nominated for four Grammy Awards and won for the 2015 album he did with Tony Bennett called The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern.

I spoke to Charlap in 2018 about a Leonard Bernstein concert he was doing. He told me this about how he and his fellow musicians approach the music they play:

“We are always playing the music every night in a new way. We try to approach it like it’s the first time we’ve ever played it.  The ability to really have a conversation all the time and reassess what we are doing, to renegotiate a line or rhythmic phrase, before you get to the end of it, is one of the great joys of jazz.”

Fans of Charlap’s music will also be interested in another 92nd Street Y concert on July 27th. He and his trio (Kenny Washington and Peter Washington) will be joined by vocalist Dianne Reeves. This is a first-time collaboration. This concert will be both a live event and a streaming event. You can find details here.

For in-person tickets (whether in person or streaming) to see Elling and Charlap, please go here.

Kurt Elling will join John Beasley’s Monk’estra for four sets at Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood beginning on July 30th. For his full schedule, go here.

Photo: Kurt Elling (Photo by Anna Webber/Courtesy 92nd Street Y)

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You can find At Home With Gustavo on KUSC Radio in Los Angeles and on KDFC in the Bay Area. The concept of these broadcasts is that Dudamel will share, in conversation with KUSC’s Brian Lauritzen, many of his favorite recordings. Instead of conducting the music, he’ll be able to express precisely what each composition and recording means to him.

Anyone who has attended an LA Phil concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall knows that Dudamel is very passionate about music. That comes through in every single performance. What’s most appealing about these radio shows is that he will explain where that passion for each piece comes from.

Dudamel will record each session in his living room as he explains in this video:

You can tune in Tuesday-Friday at 6 PM on both stations. On Sunday, when the programming will be in Spanish, it will air at 6 PM on KDFC and 7 PM on KUSC. Each episode will be unique. Dudamel will occupy approximately 10 minutes or so of each broadcast. (These broadcasts can also be streamed on each radio station’s website.)

While we wait to see how long this pandemic lasts and when we’ll be able to see Dudamel on the podium at the Hollywood Bowl (his first scheduled performance is July 7th where he’ll lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus in a performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana), for now we can invite him into our homes to share his passion for music with us.

Photo of Gustavo Dudamel by Smallz Raskind (Courtesy of the Los Angeles Philharmonic)

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Last Saturday The Soraya’s onstage Jazz Club presented Chilean singer/songwriter Camila Meza. They continue that series with another Chilean, saxophone player Melissa Aldana, who performs on Thursday and Friday night.

The concert she will be performing is called Visions for Frida Kahlo. This is a suite she composed to honor the famous artist and her work. Visions is also the name of her first quartet album released in 2019.

Surrounded by all male musicians on the recording she draws parallels between herself as a female instrumentalist in the primarily male-driven world of jazz saxophone to that of Kahlo forging her way in the male-dominated art world.

Brian Zimmerman in Jazziz Magazine said of this project, “With its richly textured soundscapes and emotionally arresting material, Visions makes a clear connection to Kahlo and other Latina pathbreakers past and present… Melissa Aldana [is] a bandleader and musician at the top of her game.”

Aldana won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition in 2013.

As a reminder, the audience will be seated on stage with Aldana.

In addition to her two performances at The Soraya, Aldana will also perform on March 11th at La Jolla’s Auditorium at The Scripps Research Institute.

For tickets on Thursday night at The Soraya go here.

For tickets on Friday night at The Soraya go here.

Photo of Melissa Aldana by Fanny Delsol (Courtesy of The Soraya)

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Dionysus takes on the form of a butch lesbian gardener named Diane (Rami Margron). The goal is to bring the earth closer to its natural order. In order to get the other characters in the play to go along with this idea, Diane will have to use all of her seductive powers. In other words, to be rather like Dionysus.

Jesse Green of the New York Times called George’s play, “astonishing.”  George was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her 2013 play, The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence.

James Vásquez directs this production of Hurricane Diane. Joining Margron in the cast are Opal Alladin, Jenn Harris, Jennifer Paredes and Liz Wisan.

This looks like not just a very funny play, but also a thoughtful one, too. Perhaps just the kind of play the god of ritual madness and theater might love. Whether he/she goes by Bacchus, Dionysus or Diane.

Hurricane Diane runs 90 minutes and does not have an intermission. There is strong language in the play.

For tickets go here.

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Yuja Wang has put together an ambitious and nearly 90-minute program for these recitals:

Gallupi: Andantate from Sonata No. 5 in C Major

Bach: Toccata in C minor, BWV 911

Brahms: Intermezzo in A minor, Op. 116

Chopin: Mazurka in A minor, Op. 67

Chopin: Mazurka in C major, Op. 67

Brahms: Intermezzo in E minor, Op. 119

Chopin: Mazurka in C-sharp minor, Op. 30, No. 4

Brahms: Intermezzo in C-sharp minor, Op. 117, No. 3

Chopin: Mazurka in F major, Op. 68, No. 3

Brahms: Romance in F major, Op. 118, No. 5

That’s just the first half of the program. I like the trading off between Brahms and Chopin in the same key signature.

The second half of the program is scheduled to include:

Scriabin: Piano Sonata No 4 in F-sharp major, Op. 30

Ravel: Une barque sur l’océan from Miroirs

Berg: Piano Sonata, Op. 1

Mompou: Secreto from Impresiones intimas

Scriabin: Piano Sonata No. 5, Op. 53

Doesn’t that make you wonder what she’ll do as her encore(s)?

For tickets at Carnegie Hall go here.

Photo of Yuja Wang courtesy of her website.

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The program is the same at both concerts. These all-Bach recitals include: Chaconne from Partita No 2. in D minor, BWV 1004 (arr. Brahms); Prelude, Gavotte and Gigue from Partita No. 3 in E Major, BWV 1006 (arr. Rachmaninoff); Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542 (arr. Liszt) and The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080.

When I heard Trifonov perform the Tchaikovsky in December, I realized there are still discoveries destined to be made about classical music and artists that want to make them. Trifonov is that artist.

You might be thinking, what’s going to be so special about a performance of these works by Bach? Forget those thoughts. I can assure you no one plays with the same degree of curiosity and passion as Trifonov.

I would recommend that any opportunity to see Daniil Trifonov to perform is one worth taking advantage of.

For tickets, please contact the venues by phone. The websites do not show tickets available online. That may indicate that these two performances are already sold out.

Photo of Daniil Trifonov courtesy of the artist’s website.

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The setting is Louisiana during the second World War. When a black sergeant is murdered an investigation is triggered. Overseeing the investigation is a black lawyer. Because this is part of a segregated regiment, it is assumed that the KKK was behind the murder. It is 1944, this is in the Jim Crow South.

Starring in this production are David Alan Grier (who appeared in the play during its first production), Blair Underwood and Jerry O’Connell. Nnamdi Asomugha takes on the role originally played by Washington.

Directing this production of A Soldier’s Play is Tony Award-winner Kenny Leon (A Raisin in the  Sun – 2014).

When  I interviewed actor Steven Anthony Jones, currently on tour in August Wilson’s Jitney, I asked him about A Soldier’s Play. He was in the original cast. This is what he had to say:

“The play has stood the test of time and will continue to stand the test of time because it is a period piece and a murder mystery. It deals with issues of race and color, but those are not the driving things within the plot. It will stand the test of time because it is such a good tight drama. Audiences will be as thrilled by it as they were the first time.”

A Soldier’s Play runs 1 hour and 50 minutes including a 15-minute intermission.

For tickets go here.

Photo: Jerry O’Connell and Blair Underwood in A Soldier’s Play (Photo by Joan Marcus/Courtesy of Polk PR)

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In 2013, rock musician/actor Sting released his first album of new material in a decade. It was a song cycle meant as part of a theatre piece. In 2014 the musical The Last Ship (also the name of the album) made is debut on Broadway. The touring production of the show just concluded its run at the Ahmanson Theatre and opens this week at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theatre. The musical will run there from February 20th to March 22nd.

A little backstory before getting into the show itself. When The Last Ship opened at the Neil Simon Theatre, Jimmy Nail was playing the role of Jackie White. Ticket sales weren’t quite what everyone had hoped and slightly more than two months after opening, Nail was replaced by Sting in an effort to boost the box office. Those efforts did not succeed and the last show of The Last Ship was on January  24, 2015 after a run of only 105 performances (not counting previews of which there were 29.)

Sting returns to the part for this tour (which will also include at stop at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theatre immediately after closing in Los Angeles.)

The Last Ship follows Gideon Fletcher (Oliver Savile) in Wallsend, North East England in 1986. He’s been away at sea for a decade-and-a-half. When he returns he finds he woman he loved, Meg Dawson (Frances McNamee) has moved on. He also discovers that the shipyard that gave the town its life and purpose is closing.  Jackie White (Sting) is a foreman who wants to see his men finish one last ship before that happens.

All the songs in the musical were written by Sting. The Last Ship features a new book by Lorne Campbell. The original book was written by John Logan and Brian Yorkey. Campbell is also the director of the show.

Here’s the good news. The show has been significantly reworked since its Broadway run. I didn’t see the show there ,but did attend yesterday’s opening night. The Last Ship has terrific songs, wonderful performances (and kudos to the casting director Beth Eden who put together not just a talented ensemble, but one that genuinely looks like they work in ship building in Northern England) and while it might be a tad long, it is still involving. The Last Ship is certainly far better than its history would suggest.

Once this mini-tour of The Last Ship is completed, Sting will begin a residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas on May 22nd.

For more information, check out our interviews with Frances McNamee and Oliver Savile.

The Last Ship runs 2 hours and 40 minutes with one intermission.

For tickets go here.

Update: This post has been updated after seeing a performance of the show. 

2nd Update:  This post has been updated for its run in San Francisco and also includes links to interviews with  cast members Frances McNamee and Oliver Savile.

Photo: Oliver Savile and Sting in The Last Ship (Photo by Matthew Murphy/Courtesy of Center Theatre Group)

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Orfeh made her Broadway debut as an understudy in Footloose. She went on to play the role of Annette in the Broadway musical version of Saturday Night Fever. In 2000, Andy Karl joined the show to replace Sean Palmer as Joey. It was there that he and Orfeh fell in love.

She went on to appear in Legally Blonde: The Musical. He appeared in that show as well as Rocky, On the Twentieth Century, Groundhog Day and they both appeared in Pretty Woman: The Musical.

Orfeh and Andy Karl have two shows this week at Feinstein’s at Vitello’s. They will be celebrating their recording and 2017 show Legally Bound which finds them doing duets and taking turns on such songs as Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, I’m Your Baby Tonight and Kiss. There are also songs from their Broadway shows.

Orfeh and Karl are bonafide Broadway stars, but they also know how to rock. Expect a combination of styles if you attend these shows on Tuesday or Wednesday at Feinstein’s.

For those of you in San Francisco, they will be performing at Feinstein’s At the Nikko on Friday and Saturday.

Photo of Orfeh and Andy Karl courtesy of andykarl.com

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