In 1956 Leonard Bernstein and Lillian Hellman staged a musical out of Voltaire’s Candide — the satiric French novel from 1759 that made a laughingstock of optimism. The Bernstein/Hellman musical was one of the most esteemed failures in American theatre. Over the years, Candide has been revived many times. The New York Philharmonic made the […]
Sviatoslav Richter, considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th Century, would have celebrated his 90th birthday last month. In a field full of eccentrics, Richter was still regarded as particularly unpredictable and moody — and one of the most enthralling performers who has set foot on a stage. Sara Fishko looks at the […]
Tony Kushner’s Angels in America was a sprawling, epic 2-part play that burst onto the Broadway stage in 1993. Kushner, along with his director George C. Wolfe and a stellar cast, crafted a monumental response to the 1980’s. The play created a world populated by ghosts, angels, Jews, Mormons, gays, McCarthyites, bureaucrats and radicals … […]
Back in the 1970s, on a routine visit to a record store in New York City, Allan Evans bought an LP recorded by a Hungarian pianist whose name meant nothing to him. But the moment he heard the music, he felt like he’d discovered a “musical Tutankhamen.” Sara Fishko tells the tale of how Evans […]