Charleston, SC – land of Pat Conroy, shrimp and grits, and George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess– I paid homage to you this weekend. I wandered the streets of Folly Beach and found Dubose Heyward’s home on W. Ashley, desolate and faded. I wanted to see where the insurance salesman who penned Porgy had lived. I bought two pounds of fresh shrimp at Crosby’s and made frogmore stew with my husband before trudging to the edge of the island with my children to see the Morris Lighthouse. I sat on the beach and listened to the sound of the Atlantic surging…
Scribe, Singer & Scholar
From Spoleto Festival USA
Another Review of Émilie and Video
This weekend I travelled to Charleston, SC to see all three operas offered by the Spoleto Festival USA – Émilie (Saariaho), The Magic Flute (Mozart) and The Medium (Menotti). Kaija Saariaho’s monodrama Émilie had been criticized for it’s lack of dramatic impetus, but I found the interior drama of Émilie du Châtelet to be extremely compelling, expressive yet obviously contrived with the compositional convention of serialism – at least in part. Another benefit of my trip to Spoleto: an introduction to the work of playwright Martin McDonagh whose play, The Cripple of Inishmaan, was produced there this summer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBxb4kyc6Gw http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/arts/music/emilie-by-kaija-saariaho-at-spoleto-festival-usa.html# http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/druid-theatre-uncovers-the-genius-of-martin-mcdonaghs-cripple-of-inishmaan/Content?oid=3387348
Jimmy Paulk’s Review of the Spoleto Festival: Filling Atlanta’s Gaps…
When the Atlanta Journal-Constitution down-sized and released several of its arts critics a few years ago, the critics created their own online forum in which to publish their assessments of Atlanta arts events. I regularly read http://www.ArtsCriticATL.com because I enjoy Pierre Ruhe’s reports of classical music in our southern city. Below I’ve pasted a link to Jimmy Paulk’s review of the opera offerings – from the Atlanta Arts Critic site – at the 2011 Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC. I’ll be heading to Charleston this weekend to see for myself. http://www.artscriticatl.com/2011/06/spoleto-festival-review-u-s-premiere-of-kaija-saariahos-emilie-a-woman-of-science-and-love/
