Artnet.com interview with Magazzino Italiano Art Executive Director Vittorio Calabrese, the Hudson Valley’s newest, most vibrant, contemporary art space
https://news.artnet.com/partner-content/vittorio-calabrese-magazzino
Tuesday, July 16, 2019
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
The Marriage of Figaro: From Vienna with Love (By Way of the Borscht Belt)
There's the opera buffa-- as reflected in the comedy of life, say, in NYC during the dog days of summer-- and then there's the "Opera Serero" which is a grand entertainment, as the maestro presents his latest operatic adaptation: Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro)" in a brief run at the American Sephardic Federation/Center for Jewish History in NYC.
Serero adapts the opera classic into a 90 minute pageant, retaining much of Mozart's brilliant score, performed by a wonderful company, but with a rewritten, contemporized pop libretto that honors Lorenzo Da Ponte's original, and breathes new comic life into the story and characterizations of Figaro and Susanna, the Count and Countess, and the lovestruck Cherubino, to the delight of new audiences.
As a result, this traditional comic opera displays fresh charm in a low budget but wildly creative production, adding a layer of borscht belt Jewish humor, (along with a dash of The Godfather, Star Wars and Looney Tunes), to the Mozart and Da Ponte original creation, which remains the cornerstone of opera companies worldwide.
Led by David Serero's Figaro, the cast, including Hannah Madeline Goodman (Susanna), Charles Gray (Count Almaviva), Jennifer Zamorano (Countess) and Allegra Durante (Cherubino), lend humor and warmth to some sublime performances. Accompanist Felix Jarrar drives a solo performance to orchestral heights. (Serero's appearance as "The Don", and his unexpected detour into Figaro's Aria from Rossini's "Barber of Seville," were at once silly pleasures and demonstrations of his vocal and comic skill.)
Tempis fugit, as do the summer months. Catch this joyously funny adaptation while you can. July 11 through July 21. Tickets at ASFFigaro.bpt.me, or call 1-800-836-3006.
—Anthony Napoli
Serero adapts the opera classic into a 90 minute pageant, retaining much of Mozart's brilliant score, performed by a wonderful company, but with a rewritten, contemporized pop libretto that honors Lorenzo Da Ponte's original, and breathes new comic life into the story and characterizations of Figaro and Susanna, the Count and Countess, and the lovestruck Cherubino, to the delight of new audiences.
As a result, this traditional comic opera displays fresh charm in a low budget but wildly creative production, adding a layer of borscht belt Jewish humor, (along with a dash of The Godfather, Star Wars and Looney Tunes), to the Mozart and Da Ponte original creation, which remains the cornerstone of opera companies worldwide.
Led by David Serero's Figaro, the cast, including Hannah Madeline Goodman (Susanna), Charles Gray (Count Almaviva), Jennifer Zamorano (Countess) and Allegra Durante (Cherubino), lend humor and warmth to some sublime performances. Accompanist Felix Jarrar drives a solo performance to orchestral heights. (Serero's appearance as "The Don", and his unexpected detour into Figaro's Aria from Rossini's "Barber of Seville," were at once silly pleasures and demonstrations of his vocal and comic skill.)
Tempis fugit, as do the summer months. Catch this joyously funny adaptation while you can. July 11 through July 21. Tickets at ASFFigaro.bpt.me, or call 1-800-836-3006.
—Anthony Napoli
Wednesday, July 3, 2019
Bob Dylan: The Beaten Path
For more info on this collection, visit http://BobDylanart.com
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
James Turrell At Mass MoCA
James Turrell’s “Hind Sight” (1984), at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MassMoCA), North Adams, MA:
“the viewer proceeds through a corridor into a dark chamber devoid of visual or aural stimuli (apart from the exhalations of an air duct). The experience is similar to falling asleep, as physical reality recedes from consciousness and the viewer enters a meditative state. After 10 to 15 minutes, the viewer’s pupils are fully dilated, at which point the viewer is called back to the material world by the presence of a dim light on the opposite side of the chamber, so faint that it can only be perceived in the viewer’s peripheral vision.”
Having previously experienced Turrell’s “Perfectly Clear” at the Museum, which projects a sense that one is floating in a boundless visual void, one recognizes Turrell’s proposal that he does not make art using light but rather by challenging the human eye and perception to recognize not what we see but how we see....
-Anthony Napoli
“the viewer proceeds through a corridor into a dark chamber devoid of visual or aural stimuli (apart from the exhalations of an air duct). The experience is similar to falling asleep, as physical reality recedes from consciousness and the viewer enters a meditative state. After 10 to 15 minutes, the viewer’s pupils are fully dilated, at which point the viewer is called back to the material world by the presence of a dim light on the opposite side of the chamber, so faint that it can only be perceived in the viewer’s peripheral vision.”
Having previously experienced Turrell’s “Perfectly Clear” at the Museum, which projects a sense that one is floating in a boundless visual void, one recognizes Turrell’s proposal that he does not make art using light but rather by challenging the human eye and perception to recognize not what we see but how we see....
-Anthony Napoli
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Romeo & Juliet (adapted in a Jewish-style) at the American Sephardi Federation/Center for Jewish History
Singer, composer, impresario David Serero's latest work, a Jewish adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, is a clever, slightly contemporized performance of the theatrical classic. Seen through a Jewish lens of an Ashkenazi Juliet and a Sephardi Romeo, the production combines English, Yiddish, Ladino and Russian song, with drama, humor and requisite sword play. Performed by an energetic cast, and highlighted by Serero's operatic performance, the show's all-to-brief run will be at the Center for Jewish History, in New York City, thru June 23.
