The Opera Tattler

Reviews of Performances and their Audiences

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Category: William Kentridge

  • William Kentridge’s The Great Yes, The Great No at Cal Performances

    * Notes * William Kentridge’s The Great Yes, The Great No (pictured, photograph by Monika Rittershaus) had a Bay Area premiere at Cal Performances last weekend. The choral music was composed by Nhlanhla Mahlangu and also performed by her and six other singers. The music director was Tlale Makhene who played percussion in the small ensemble…

  • William Kentridge’s SIBYL at Cal Performances

    * Notes * William Kentridge's SIBYL (scene from Part 2 pictured, photograph by Stella Olivier) had a US premiere at Cal Performances this weekend. The music composed by performer Nhlanhla Mahlangu and pianist Kyle Shephard was nothing short of mesmerizing. The presentation started with a short 22-minute film by Kentridge entitled The Moment Has Gone with…

  • William Kentridge’s Ursonate at Cal Performances

    * Notes * William Kentridge performed the Dadaist sound poem Ursonate (ovation pictured) at Cal Performances last Friday in Berkeley as part of his UC Berkeley residency this school year. The piece involves Kentridge intoning Kurt Schwitters' nonsense words at a podium as images flash in the background on a large piece of paper. The effect…

  • Wozzeck at the Met

    * Notes * William Kentridge's latest production of Wozzeck (pictured, photograph by Ken Howard) at The Met perfectly captures the nightmarish quality of Berg's piece. The opening yesterday evening was one of immersive theater and absolutely beautiful playing from the orchestra. The set is dark, filled with projected drawings, animations, and video footage of human…

  • Refuse the Hour Review

    * Notes * The West Coast premiere of William Kentridge's multimedia extravaganza Refuse the Hour (ovation at Saturday's evening performance pictured) was presented at ACT last weekend before heading south to Los Angeles. The frenetic piece is the companion of Kentridge's Refusal of Time, a video installation recently at SFMOMA, and it too contemplates nature of…

  • Kentridge’s Winterreise

    * Notes *SF Opera Lab began with visual artist William Kentridge's production of Winterreise last weekend. His beautiful meditations on Schubert's Lieder are deeply immersive and the incredible performers, baritone Matthias Goerne and pianist Markus Hinterhäuser though very talented, seemed almost incidental to the work. The effect Kentridge gets with mostly black and white projections…

  • The Met’s Lulu

    * Notes * A spectacular new production of Lulu (pictured left, photograph by Ken Howard) opened at the Metropolitan Opera last night. Director William Kentridge's staging is vibrant, and the singing and playing was strong. There were times when the production was perhaps busy, there was a lot of enormous video art projected across the stage…

  • The Nose at The Met

    * Notes * William Kentridge's 2010 production of The Nose (pictured left, photograph by Ken Howard) at the Metropolitan Opera was revived on Saturday afternoon. The matinée performance was an utter delight. The combination of music, singing, animation, set, and choreography all came together wonderfully. Performed without an intermission, the intensity of the proceedings is impressive.…

  • The Nose at the Met

    * Notes * The fifth performance of Shostakovich's The Nose at the Metropolitan Opera was last night. Wiliam Kentridge's production is utter spectacle, the absurdist whimsy suits the music and the plot. At times, the animated projections were a bit dizzying, but overall they came off very well. There were times when the singers were placed…