Sinéad O'Connor Interview: "I Deserve to be a Priest. Music is a Priesthood."

THE GUARDIAN
By Tim Jonze

"I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss" is an album influenced by Chicago blues – O'Connor cites Buddy Guy and Howlin' Wolf as influences – and has what she calls a "dirty edge". The Vishnu Room, for instance, is sung from the viewpoint of a woman who feels under pressure to perform on her wedding night, and asks her man if she can just lie with her head on his chest instead "because Vishnu lives at the core of your heart". I mention an old quote in which O'Connor described Hinduism as the religion she most identified with and say I found that surprising. "Why?" she says. "Oh, because I'm a priest?" – O'Connor was ordained in 1999 by the breakaway Latin Tridentine church – "Yeah, well being a priest was just civil disobedience. Although I deserve to be a priest, frankly, better than any of them, in terms of the actual faith and respect [I have] for the holy spirit. [link]

I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss is released on 11 August. 

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Theatre Review: ‘The Pianist of Willesden Lane,’ a Jewish Girl’s War Story

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Charles Isherwood

Mona Golabek as a Jewish teenager who escapes the Nazis in “The Pianist of Willesden Lane,” at 59E59 Theaters.

NEW YORK---“The Pianist of Willesden Lane,” which opened on Tuesday at the 59E59 Theaters, tells the remarkable story of Lisa’s years in wartime London with an economy of means and a simplicity that only enhance the emotional effect. Packed with startling setbacks (the house at Willesden Lane is destroyed during the Blitz) and equally dramatic triumphs (against all odds, Mrs. Cohen has it rebuilt), it’s the kind of tale that would probably seem melodramatic if it were fiction. “Never stop playing,” her mother told her just before she boarded the train in Vienna, “and I will be with you every step of the way.” Lisa took the words to heart. Spiritually speaking, her fingers never left the keys, because only through her music could she maintain a connection to the vanished happiness of her Vienna childhood and the love of the family she feared lost forever. [link]

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The Crucible,’ by Arthur Miller, Plays at London's Old Vic Theatre

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Ben Brantley

"The Crucible," at the Old Vic in London, stars Richard Armitage, right, as John Proctor. Credit Johan Persson

UNITED KINGDOM---The Puritan torturers who try to break the spirit of John Proctor, the honor-bound hero of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” have nothing on the devastating revival of that play that recently opened at the Old Vic. As directed by Yael Farber, this three-and-a-half-hour production applies unrelieved pressure to your nerves — and, it would seem, muscles that include the heart — until you’re a submissive puddle of pity and terror. In doing so, Ms. Farber makes the most convincing case that I’ve encountered for the greatness of this 1953 drama about the Salem witch trials, a longtime staple of American high school reading lists and community theaters. [link]

“The Crucible” continues through Sept. 13 at the Old Vic in London; oldvictheatre.com. 

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Theatre Review: George Bernard Shaw's Satirizing of Patriotism and Piety

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Michael Sommers

Shaw, Bernard, 1856-1950; Federal Theatre Project (U.S.), sponsor; United States.
Work Projects Administration, sponsor - Catalog No.: F8-8A-1 Date Created: 1937

NEW JERSEY---Anyone who thinks that George Bernard Shaw wrote plays that are long on talk and deficient in action will be agreeably surprised by the dramatic goings-on of “The Devil’s Disciple.” In 1896, early in his career as a dramatist, Shaw wrote a dark comedy that exploited the elements of Victorian blood-and-thunder melodramas to his own purposes. Presented by the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey in Madison, “The Devil’s Disciple” features a rascally hero, a parson’s virtuous wife, an oppressed orphan, the reading of a will, a case of mistaken identity, a noble sacrifice that echoes “A Tale of Two Cities” and (without giving away too much of the plot here) several last-second reversals that occur in the shadow of the gallows. [link]

 “The Devil’s Disciple,” by George Bernard Shaw, is at the F. M. Kirby Shakespeare Theater, 36 Madison Avenue, Madison, through July 27. Information: shakespearenj.org. or (973) 408-5600.

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White Mid-Century Blues Collectors Are Getting a Lot of Attention Today

THE NEW REPUBLIC
By Barry Mazor

In mid-April, The New York Times Magazine published a cover story that might have been taken as a sign of a leap in interest in pre-World War II acoustic blues. Constructed to maximize suspense, that story—and the peculiarities of white, educated blues obsessives—was the element that justified the article’s prominence in a publication not otherwise known for introducing forgotten music by minor artists of earlier eras. The magazine’s editors are not alone. In the weeks since then, four new books have been published that take up related themes: stories of middlemen blues researchers and record collectors, often, of guys who’ve been both. [link]

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Has Christian Hip-Hop Finally Arrived?

CHRISTIAN POST
By Nicola Menzie

NEW YORK---Christian hip-hop has made some notable inroads in the last few years, especially in the mainstream market. Popular rapper Lecrae has won Grammy, Stellar, and Dove awards, and he, along with other Christian artists, appear regularly on networks like BET and MTV. Does this mean the movement that emerged in the early '80s as Gospel rap has finally arrived? [link]

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Theatre Review: Couples Taking On ‘I Believe’ After ‘I Do’

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Daniel M. Gold

Danielle O’Farrell and Andrew William Smith in "The Religion Thing," at the Cell Theater

NEW YORK---At the start of “The Religion Thing,” Mo and Brian, a married couple in their 30s living the high-velocity life of Washington lawyers and lobbyists, are having Mo’s best friend since college, Patti, and her latest man, Jeff, over for dinner. Directed by Douglas Hall, this Project Y Theater Company production is smartly staged, with Kevin Judge’s sets in the intimate Cell Theater neatly shifting from dining room to bedroom to office to reception hall for scenes that unfold over several weeks. Crucially, though, for a play called “The Religion Thing,” there is surprisingly little real discussion of theology. Patti and Jeff briefly describe the crises that brought them to their church, while Mo and Brian mention the rituals they have set aside. But virtually absent is any true talk of spirituality, of what role it plays in their lives. Without that, religion is just another weapon for people to wield against one another. [link]

“The Religion Thing” continues through Aug. 1 at the Cell Theater, 338 West 23rd Street, Chelsea; brownpapertickets.com, 212-352-3101. 

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Sir Elton John: Jesus would have supported gay marriage

THE GUARDIAN

By Press Association

UNITED KINGDOM---Jesus would have been a supporter of gay marriage, Sir Elton John has claimed. The musician, who plans to marry his civil partner David Furnish next year in a "very quiet" ceremony, said that rules preventing gay clergy from marrying and requiring Catholic priests to be celibate were "old and stupid things". [link]

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Opera Review: Where Passion Rules, Morality Stands Little Chance

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM

L’Incoronazione di Poppea In a new Robert Wilson production of this Monteverdi opera, singers recreate the tale of a mistress who wants to be empress. After a run in Paris, the work will continue in Milan early next year.

FRANCE---Nero and Poppea never touch in Robert Wilson’s new production of Monteverdi’s “L’Incoronazione di Poppea” for the Paris Opera, which ends its run at the Palais Garnier on Monday. Their love affair, which drives anyone who gets in its way to death or exile, is one of the most violent portrayed in opera. The tension between the frosty beauty of Mr. Wilson’s production and the simmering passions of its characters is disconcerting at first. What Mr. Wilson offers is a geometry lesson in human passions. In Monteverdi’s opera, the historical events are introduced as a test of strength between Amor, Virtue and Fortune, which Amor is determined to win. The libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello reflects the very Venetian bent for intellectual contrarianism on the margins of the religious conformity of his time in the 17th century. [link]

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Prophet Goes to Church: A New Iteration of Reggie Wilson’s ‘Moses(es)’

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By GIA KOURLAS

". . Moses(es)" by Reggie Wilson, at St. Cornelius Chapel
on Governors Island. Credit Darial Sneed

NEW YORK---In the stage version of “ ... Moses(es),” performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last December, the choreographer Reggie Wilson began by introducing himself to the assembled crowd. His dancers followed suit, adding how long they’d spent as members of his Fist & Heel Performance Group. Mr. Wilson then stuffed armloads of silver tinsel into a suitcase. He packs a lot into his dances. In Mr. Wilson’s low-key iteration of the production, shown at St. Cornelius Chapel on Governors Island on Wednesday, the space changes everything. The chapel’s crumbling white walls, arched windows and depth give the dancers pronounced individuality; instead of sculptural red costumes, they wear red practice clothes. The swooping, almost feverish choreography was just as potent here as it was at the Brooklyn Academy, but Mr. Wilson’s structure ignited the performance space with an earthy fervor. [link]

The River to River Festival continues through Sunday at various New York locations; rivertorivernyc.com.

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Music Review: Early Music Finds Its Future in NYC at St. Jean Baptiste Church

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By JAMES R. OESTREICH

Scott Metcalfe conducting the vocal ensemble Tenet at St. Jean Baptiste Church as part of Early Music Festival: NYC.

NEW YORK---The new Early Music Festival: NYC, which ended last week, gives reason for cautious hope. It has powerfully influenced the classical music mainstream with its concern for period style: its ethic of exploring the ways music might have been performed, and the meanings it might have held in its time; its use of — its very need for — improvisation and conjecture to fill in the gaps of sketchy sources and scores and breathe new life into age-old obscurities. [link]

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Music Review: Telling a Temple’s Tale From the Nile to the Met

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Zachary Woolfe

The ensemble Alarm Will Sound performing “I Was Here I Was I,”
the Kate Soper work, at the Temple of Dendur in the Sackler Wing at the Met.

NEW YORK---The sandstone temple was built around 15 B.C. on the west bank of the Nile, roughly 600 miles south of Cairo. With the construction of the Aswan Dam, starting in 1960, the temple was threatened with inundation. In gratitude for the assistance of the United States in saving the structure, Egypt gave it to the American government, which in turn awarded it to the Met. The tranquil, soaring space in the Metropolitan Museum of Art that has housed the Temple of Dendur since 1978 is so beloved that New Yorkers could be forgiven for thinking that the temple itself is beside the point, merely an excuse for the glamorous room, with its sweeping wall of glass. Its millenniums-spanning past is explored in “I Was Here I Was I,” a serene, sometimes elegant, sometimes listless new music-theater work by the composer Kate Soper and the librettist and director Nigel Maister performed on Friday by the ensemble Alarm Will Sound and its conductor, Alan Pierson, in the temple’s Sackler Wing pavilion. [link]

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The Metropolitan Opera’s Censorship of “The Death of Klinghoffer”: Artwork About Oppression of Palestinians Considered Anti-Jewish

GLOBAL RESEARCH
By David Walsh

The decision by New York City’s Metropolitan Opera to cancel its plans for worldwide high-definition video transmission and radio broadcast of John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer is a scandalous and cowardly capitulation to right-wing forces, with far-reaching implications. The claim that the work is “anti-Jewish” (per the cover of Rupert Murdoch’s gutter New York Post on June 18) is libelous and absurd. It can only be credited by those who have neither seen the opera nor read the text of its libretto—or who have an ideological axe to grind. The musical piece, which opens with choruses of “Exiled Palestinians” and “Exiled Jews,” respectively, is a poetic, somber effort to come to terms with the historical tragedy of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The only anti-Semitic lines (often cited by opponents of the opera) are given to a character nicknamed “Rambo,” an obvious sadist and thug. The Metropolitan Opera’s decision has outraged many around the world. [link]

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Yiddish ‘Soul Doctor’ Will Return, Off Broadway

ARTSBEAT
By ALLAN KOZINN

Soul Doctor Eric Anderson in this musical about the life of Shlomo Carlebach, now at the Circle in the Square.

NEW YORK---“Soul Doctor,” the musical about the guitar-strumming, folksong-composing rabbi Shlomo Carlebach that had a brief Broadway run at Circle in the Square in 2013, will return in an off-Broadway production at the Actors Temple Theater. Previews begin on Nov. 25; the show opens on Dec. 13. Jeremy Chess is producing. Casting details for the production have not been announced. The show, which uses adaptations of Carlebach’s music and has a book by Daniel S. Wise and new lyrics by David Schechter, offers a sweeping overview of the rabbi’s life (he fled the Nazis as a teenager, moved to New York, started congregations in San Francisco and Israel and died in 1994), with particular attention to his long relationship with the jazz singer Nina Simone. A Yiddish production of “Soul Doctor” is running through June 29 at the Segal Centre in Montreal. [link]

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Theatre Review: ‘The Who & the What’ Examines Faith and Family

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Charles Isherwood

Heidi Armbruster and Aasif Mandvi as a married couple in “Disgraced,” in 2012

NEW YORK---Matters of faith and family, gender and culture are stirred together into a fiery-flavored stew in “The Who & the What,” the probing new play by Ayad Akhtar that opened on Monday at the Claire Tow Theater at Lincoln Center. Like Mr. Akhtar’s “Disgraced,” which won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize and will be seen on Broadway this fall, this new work considers the itchy frictions that emerge when religious belief and contemporary life rub up against each other, as they do for the family at the center of the play, a Pakistani immigrant and his two grown daughters. [link]

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Marina Abramović is no Fraud – or no More so Than Any Religious Leader

SPECTATOR
By Igor Toronyi-Lalic

Photograph © 2014 by Marco Anelli

UNITED KINGDOM---If art is the new religion, we were always going to end up here. With high priests, acolytes and ‘energy’. That’s the set up at the Serpentine Gallery at the moment, us as the potential believers queuing around the block ready to be received, and Marina Abramović as the high priestess armed with nothing (literally nothing) but her presence. It could be Rome, Jerusalem or Gold Base. It could be the 20th, 8th or 1st centuries. We’re in a world of belief – perhaps make-believe. The religious overtones are immediate. But if 512 Hours is a con, so is all religion. And I’d much rather be swindled by Marina than anyone else. [link]

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Beauty in Judaism: Singing

THE HUFFINGTON POST
By Naomi Chasek-MacFoy

Photograph by KidSpirit contributor Merrell Hatton

I am a Jew, by heritage and ethnicity. No one in my family is particularly religious; I don't think any of us believe in God. We attend services for the two most important holidays, Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), and celebrate a handful of others at home.  I enjoy the intellectual aspects of Judaism -- Torah study, vigorous discussion -- but, at its heart, Judaism, to me, is a singing tradition. Although I am not particularly religious, or even very spiritual, singing has helped forge some of my strongest ties to the faith. [link]

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Andre Rieu's "I Will Follow Him" With Nun's Choir

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS
By TAHLIB

 

Today, my friend, Dr. Leon Boothe forwarded this YouTube video, first published on Jan 13, 2013 "Under The Stars - Live In Maastricht V." He wrote: "I have not forwarded anything for along time due to a number of reasons, but this is one of those WOW! moments. Enjoy!" Most of us remember this performance from "Sister Act" with Whoopie Goldberg, but it's also worth remembering the original secular romantic-love story by Little Peggy March from 1963.

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‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ Tour Is Abruptly Canceled

NYT: ARTSBEAT
By Dave Itzkoff

Touring production is "Canceled" without explanation. Courtesy of Tickemaster.com

A high-wattage and eclectically cast new North American touring production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” has been abruptly canceled, just over a week before what would have been its first performance. In a brief statement on Friday, an affiliate of the production company S2BN Entertainment announced “the cancellation of the Jesus Christ Superstar Arena Spectacular Tour” and said that all purchased tickets would be refunded. This production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice rock opera was begun with some fanfare in April, with a cast that was to include Ben Forster, the winner of a British reality-TV competition, as Jesus; Brandon Boyd of Incubus as Judas; Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child as Mary Magdalene; and John Lydon, the lead singer of the Sex Pistols, as King Herod. [link]

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Theatre Review: ‘Early Shaker Spirituals,’ Plain-Spoken Tribute

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Ben Brantley

A scene from the Wooster Group's "Early Shaker Spirituals."

NEW YORK---The gift of being simple has never been widely associated with the Wooster Group, whose austere and profoundly affecting “Early Shaker Spirituals” opened on Thursday night at the Performing Garage in SoHo. So to find the Wooster Group paying plain-spoken tribute to the Shakers, a sect celebrated for its religious ardor and unadorned aesthetic, feels like a setup for a joke. Abstemiousness is also a hallmark of the Shaker religion, a celibate 18th-century offshoot of the Quakers and now nearly extinct. A Dionysian spirit is reined in and refined until it becomes a precise worldly expression of something impalpable and divine. That’s what the Wooster Group, like the Shakers, has aimed for. May their lessons, too, be preserved for the generations to come. [link]

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