Thomas Frank's "Pity the Billionaire'

Herbert Hoover or FDR? Playing the hindsight game with Obama

Thomas Frank's new book seeks to explain the resurgence of the Republican Party over the past four years in terms of the Tea Party phenomenon and its shrewd exploitation by Republican strategists. He is far less persuasive in accounting for the dissipation of the once-in-a-generation mandate Democrats seemed to have won in 2008.

Robert Zaller

Jun 30, 2012 · Articles · 7 minute read

What I learned from whale watching

Captain Ahab, meet Charlie Manuel: Lessons of a novice whale-watcher

What do composers and conductors share in common with sea captains, farmers and Major League baseball managers? As I learned on my first whale-watching expedition, it‘s a certain fixity in the eyes that enables you to see things no one else ever noticed before.

Kile Smith

Jun 26, 2012 · Articles · 4 minute read

Concert Operetta does Victor Herbert

Grownups in Herbert-land

Lasting romantic love, Victor Herbert-style, may be a delusion. But it's a more useful delusion than many of the fantasies peddled by the arts these days.

Tom Purdom

Jun 26, 2012 · Articles · 4 minute read

Yannick's homage to Stokowski (2nd review)

Stokowski's excitement, rekindled

At last weekend's Stokowski's celebration, the performances justified the palpable excitement. Yannick Nézet-Séguin has set the bar for the Philadelphia Orchestra very high indeed.

Steve Cohen

Jun 26, 2012 · Articles · 4 minute read

Yannick's homage to Stokowski (1st review)

Yannick's Stokowski quandary: Showmanship or artistry?

In four memorable concerts this past weekend, the Philadelphia Orchestra's new leader, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, paid homage to the showmanship and musicianship of its late conductor Leopold Stokowski. He also demonstrated that he still has a thing or two to learn from Stoky.

Victor L. Schermer

Jun 26, 2012 · Articles · 6 minute read

Stokowski's forgotten Youth Concerts

The maestro who listened to teenagers

Leopold Stokowski may have terrorized his musicians, audiences and board members, but he forged a genuine connection with teenagers that the Philadelphia Orchestra hasn't achieved since his departure.

Steve Cohen

Jun 19, 2012 · Articles · 3 minute read

Muhly's "Dark Sisters' by the Opera Company

If gays can marry, why not…..?

Dark Sisters, a new opera based on a 1953 federal raid on polygamists, briefly raises a tantalizing issue but fails to explore it.

Steve Cohen

Jun 18, 2012 · Articles · 3 minute read

Capanna and Maneval works at Curtis

The sonata today: Dull copy, lively music

The differences between Robert Capanna and Philip Maneval demonstrated, once again, the difference between the music that composers turn out today and the academic music that audiences endured for too many years of the 20th Century.

Tom Purdom

Jun 17, 2012 · Articles · 4 minute read

Michael Ching's "Slaying the Dragon'

Can't we all just get along?

Michael Ching's Slaying the Dragon, based on the true story of a friendship between a Ku Klux Klansman and a rabbi, generates plenty of good feelings. But it lacks the essential ingredient in opera: dramatic conflict.

Steve Cohen

Jun 17, 2012 · Articles · 3 minute read

Spratlan's "Hesperus' by Network for New Music and The Crossing

Spratlan's afterlife, with a dash of irony

For Hesperus Is Phosphorous, Lewis Spratlan created musical settings of three witty prose vignettes on the afterlife taken from Sum, an odd little international bestseller by the neuroscientist David Eagleman.

Tom Purdom

Jun 11, 2012 · Articles · 4 minute read