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Thomas May
Recent Stories
Chamber music: the Lakeside formula
A recent concert shows both the rewards and the pitfalls of Seattle Chamber Music Festival's philosophy of programming with mix-and-match musicians from the summer circuit.
This Streetcar rides a little too smoothly
Director Sheila Daniels' debut at Intiman tackles a play so vivid in our memories that it is hard to make it new, or to bring back what once made it so incendiary.
Seattle Symphony diversifies the product line
The symphony embarks on some new, non-traditional programming directions as it faces a decline in season ticket buyers and tight finances. So far, it seems to be working.
'Technicolor Armageddon' at the Seattle Symphony
A season-ending display of the Symphony's firepower, with Wagner and Mahler, produces some lovely moments and some curious spells of sputtering.
Quantifying the artistic life
We like to think of creativity as a mysterious, indeterminate quality that resists being measured.
But it's also a potent economic reality, as the National Endowment for the Arts emphasizes — through the drama of statistics — in a comprehensive new report [PDF]. Released yesterday, Artists in the Workforce: 1990-2005 synthesizes data from the last two U.S. censuses as well as the American Community Survey to give a statistical portrait of the artist in our society — the first such report the NEA has published in the 21st century.
A world premiere at Intiman rides the memory express
Andrew Weems stars in Namaste Man, directed by Bart Sher, a fascinating one-man play that shuttles between boyhood memories and Eastern wisdom, New York and Nepal.
The Wing Luke Museum takes flight
The handsome new space is a striking work of architecture, and the exhibits make up a "meta-museum," continually asking questions about how a museum should relate to its community.
Anatomy of a Mark Morris masterpiece
He brings his glorious adaptation of Handel's Allegro-Penseroso to the Paramount, in a collaboration with the Seattle Symphony. This amazing work, which defiantly launched Morris' international career in 1988, still gracefully bears its heavy reputation.
Seamus Heaney tackles Sophocles at the Seattle Rep
The production opens with a stunning scene, but there are a few fatal mistakes in this play about fate and war.
Anne-Sophie Mutter in recital: big risks, stunning artistry
How often do you run across the hack formula "one of the leading musicians of his/her generation" in a program bio or review? Not only is it a meaningless nuisance; its ubiquity makes it all the more difficult when an artist really does need to be singled out from her peers. Anne-Sophie Mutter’s Wednesday evening recital at Benaroya Hall was a stunning reminder of what sets the truly great performers apart: their ability to make us hear music in entirely new ways. (She also happened to be stunningly fitted in one of her mermaid-style Dior gowns — a silk-satin lemon yellow number with fantastical swirling appliqués.)
Puccini's only comic opera is brought to vivid life
Seattle Opera's Young Artists have good fun with the story of an amiable con artist, while also staging a rare "lyrical fantasy" by Ravel (libretto by Colette), here set in a subway.
At ACT: an inspiring theater company from Tashkent
The play depicts young love quashed by implacable social forces. The theater company's story is one of bravely surviving amid censorship in Uzbekistan, while drawing on folkloric and boldly experimental performance styles. It adds up to a remarkable night of theater.
Two visiting orchestras, two knockout concerts
The Academy of Ancient Music, at Town Hall, shows how in your face "old" music can be, while the Russian National Orchestra raises goosebumps at Benaroya, making Tchaikovsky almost frighteningly up-to-date.
A Seattle playwright's new, soaring work
Robert Schenkken's By the Waters of Babylon at Seattle Rep narrows his usual large canvas to an intimate story of two characters groping with the torments of exile. Suzanne Bouchard's performance alone makes this a must-see production.
Living American composers! In Seattle!
A stunning weekend festival by Seattle Chamber Players demonstrates the great vitality of contemporary classical music. And also how much Seattle lags the West Coast in serving up such excitement.
Seattle Opera's Pagliacci: more is less
The short opera is normally part of a double bill, but here, presented alone, some padding only adds to other problems.
Getting down at Town Hall, cellist Joshua Roman does Radiohead
The Seattle Symphony member and Town Hall music director presented a boundary-pushing concert, an artistic manifesto for contemporary classical performances. It's a road worth taking, even with some early bumps.
Seattle Opera: looking ahead
In announcing its 2008-09 season Seattle Opera is upping the ante and showing some possible aspects of what the company will be like after Speight Jenkins retires.
Messiah becomes a tradition revived
An especially memorable performance by Seattle Baroque and Tudor Choir at Town Hall.
WET detonates Ibsen's Hedda Gabler
Two years in the making, blahblahblahBANG, an ambitious show by Washington Ensemble Theater, is a high-profile step for an edgy and accomplished Seattle theater company. It's full of brilliant bits in the course of a radical reworking of a classic play.
A double dose of Gerard Schwarz conducting the SSO
How goes the musical partnership between the Seattle Symphony and its conductor? Two ambitious programs focusing on Brahms and Shostakovich produce critical reactions of alarm, exasperation, and deep satisfaction.
Seattle Symphony under Stéphane Denève: firing on all cylinders
The young French conductor coaxes a thrilling and revelatory performance.
Stephen Sondheim's most-produced musical, somewhat defanged
5th Avenue Theatre mounts Into the Woods, an intricate reworking of fairy tales, with many a twist. The production has marvelous moments and an excellent cast, but it steers a little too far from the dark side of Sondheim's musical imagination.
Wrapping up the Central Europe Music Festival
The Seattle Symphony Orchestra should take more such risks.
Seattle Symphony opens the doors on Bartok's elusive opera
The rarely staged Bluebeard's Castle is given a compelling performance as part of the symphony's Central Europe Music Festival. A work of fascinating symbolic power, Bartok's sole opera was enriched in this concert staging by glass artworks from Dale Chihuly.
Eschenbach's unhappy Philly Orchestra: blazing and brilliant
Badly at odds with its conductor, these musicians somehow manage to perform a powerhouse Berlioz at Benaroya Hall.
Renee Fleming and the Seattle Symphony: Viva la Diva
Both fans and detractors found support for their views of soprano Renee Fleming in her curiously programmed star turn.
Seattle Opera's deft Bohemian rhapsody
Puccini's evergreen masterpiece receives a solid and sincere production, with some moments of sure directorial power and memorable visuals.
An illuminating Light
Intiman's Seattle-born Light in the Piazza comes back to town in a savvy and enchanting production at the Paramount.
Seattle Opera shows its youth with Verdi's late-in-life rendering of Falstaff
Peter Kazaras and an impressive cast have fun with the opera that broke with tradition.
As PONCHO regroups, Seattle arts struggle
King County health officials go national — with a comic book
A Portland festival for pianoheads
The end of deregulation as we know it
A scramble to find an employer for 1,400 left jobless in Lane County
Portland jumps on the anti-bag bandwagon
The end of deregulation as we know it
B.C.'s Darkwoods rainforest is Canada's largest private conservation land
Portland approves a new light rail extension
The end of deregulation as we know it
Losing your favorite Starbucks? The five stages of grief
'Lazy locavores' have someone else grow food in their backyards
The 'Northern Lights' are caused by magnetic explosions, say scientists
Portland approves a new light rail extension
The No. 2 is too useful
Schultz seeks to split his Sonics suit
The art of making gloves — for Ichiro
My oh my! Dave Niehaus has had a grand slam career
Losing your favorite Starbucks? The five stages of grief
Esprit de core competency
Editorial cartoonists join the endangered list at newspapers
The No. 2 is too useful
Portland jumps on the anti-bag bandwagon
The art of making gloves — for Ichiro
B.C.'s Darkwoods rainforest is Canada's largest private conservation land
The Dems want you to know: Peter Goldmark is no 'longhaired liberal from Seattle'
Writer Rick Bass recounts his shift to being a wilderness advocate in Montana
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