Chamber opera has been the raison d’etre for Marble City Opera over its 10 years of life, even if many of the company’s productions seemed to redefine what a “chamber” actually is. Tosca in a cathedral and La Traviata in…
Review: River & Rail Theatre Co. Explores Secrets and Truths in ‘Fun Home’
BY ALAN SHERROD Successful works of theatre have a way of holding up a mirror to its viewers, its reflection revealing universal truths that touch each individual with memories and revelations specific to their own lives. That is certainly…
Review: KSO Wraps Season With Visceral Stravinsky and Emotional Beethoven
BY ALAN SHERROD Going big in a season finale symphony concert is, most assuredly, a valid approach, one that the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra and conductor Aram Demirjian embraced this weekend to finish up the 2022-23 concert season. In this…
KSO This Week: “Beethoven and The Rite of Spring”
Knoxville Symphony Orchestra — “Beethoven and The Rite of Spring” Conductor: Aram Demirjian • Lili Boulanger: Of A Spring Morning • Tan Dun: Passacaglia: Secret Of Wind And Birds • Ludwig Van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 —…
Review: KSO Wraps 2022-23 Chamber Classics With Double Oboe Concertos and a Fabulous Beethoven Eighth
BY ALAN SHERROD Is it possible that the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra saved the best for its last Chamber Classics Series concert of the 2022-23 season? Clearly, Sunday afternoon’s musical outing was one that not only looked intriguing on paper,…
This Week: The Lusty Month of May Begins with KSO, UTSO, KJO, Jazz Tuesdays, et al.
The lusty month of May has arrived, although the “gusty” month of May is probably more accurate. Whether May is a cause for excitement or not depends on one’s awareness that the 2022-23 season is now beginning to wind down…
Review: Knoxville Opera Triumphs With ‘The Marriage of Figaro’
BY ALAN SHERROD Knoxville Opera began its life at the Bijou Theatre in 1978 as the Knoxville Civic Opera. Returning to its birthplace this weekend, the company triumphed there to wrap up its 2022-23 season with a production of…
Review: UT Opera Theatre’s ‘Hänsel und Gretel’
BY ALAN SHERROD It felt like it had been forever since the University of Tennessee Opera Theatre had trod the boards at the Bijou Theatre—but the company was back last weekend with a production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hänsel und…
Review: Clarence Brown Theatre’s ‘Hair’
BY ALAN SHERROD Hair, the rock musical that opened off-Broadway in 1967 and had a substantial Broadway run of four years, practically defined a generational era in American cultural history, not just with its statements of love, peace, and…
Review: A Powerful Mozart ‘Requiem’ from Knoxville Symphony and Knoxville Choral Society
BY ALAN SHERROD Any discussion of past or present requiems inevitably begins with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 1791 Requiem, a work that has found itself the subject of myth and speculation, largely due to the fact that the composer died…
