It’s easy to say it was an enchanted evening — with coconut palms, banyan trees and more — thanks to this sunny production of South Pacific at PlayhouseSquare’s Palace Theatre. This much-lauded Lincoln Center version breathes new life into Rodgers and Hammerstein’s beloved classic. One reason has to be the compelling presence of the two leads. Bass-baritone David Pittsinger, as French planter ...

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Passion drives everyone a bit mad in this Bizet opera. The Pearl Fishers suffers from a weak storyline (even for opera, it’s lame). But who cares? This Opera Cleveland and GroundWorks Dance Theatre production of “The Pearl Fishers” delights in Bizet’s melodious score and the opportunities it offers for great dance numbers. Hints of Bizet’s masterwork, Carmen (which came a dozen years after), lurk throughout but Kay Walker-Castaldo, stage director; Dean Williamson, music director, and David ...

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Joffrey Ballet and The Cleveland Orchestra @ Blossom 9/4 Let there be [more] light. When Joffrey Ballet artistic director Ashley C. Wheater spoke to the press earlier this summer I asked him if the company would make any set changes based on experience gained after last year’s successful Blossom appearance with the Cleveland Orchestra. The first thing he mentioned was the lighting--that they hadn’t realized how much natural ambient light detracted from the dancers. They certainly fixed that. Walking into the Pavilion this ...

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  I’ve just got to say that if I’d been wearing socks they would have been knocked off by the concert offered by Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble last month.An overflow [crossover] crowd filled the Blossom Music Center pavilion and the lawn that Saturday night to listen to new works as well as traditional Persian and Chinese music.The ensemble’s interactions with each other and with the audience kept alive a keen awareness of the sense of drama inherent in music’s power to summon and ...

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Review: Oberlin Summer Theatre Festival’s Much Ado About Nothing Laughs at Love An utterly delightful opening-night production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing showed, once again, that the Oberlin Summer Theatre Festival is the place to be for the month of July. The Hall Auditorium theatre sizzled with Director Paul Moser’s jazz-era version of the classic battle between the sexes. Charmingly played lovers Hero (Alexis Macnab) and Claudio (Donnie Sheldon) showed just how ...

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  Iolanthe @ Ohio Light Opera 6/30/10 In Gilbert and Sullivan’s nineteenth-century era elves and fairies held the same popular cachet that vampires and werewolves do today. Just as in “Twilight” or “True Blood,” the nonhuman creatures could be both lovely and dangerous. The Ohio Light Opera’s “Iolanthe” delights in the splendid, frothy, utterly musical side of mortals mingling with fairies. While there are supposed to be fatal consequences (the fairy ...

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  Kismet, the season-opener for of the Ohio Light Opera, showed in the most tuneful way possible why this ensemble opera company continues to attract musical theatre lovers to Wooster College. From the dramatic opening in the darkened theatre with cast members singing as they walked slowly down the aisles, to the comically satirsfying ending, the show paid lyric tribute to the score’s gorgeous and lush melodies by Alexander Borodin. “Baubles, bangles, and beads,” “Stranger in paradise ” and ...

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Fiddler on the Roof @ Playhouse Square 6/15/10 In the recent Playhouse Square production of the American theatre classic that is Fiddler on the Roof, the fiddler comes off the roof and Tevye comes out of the closet (so to speak). Gravel-voiced Harvey Fierstein, faced with the task of making the role his own, succeeded brilliantly--at least for fans of Fierstein (count me in). Yes, he did channel Edna Turnblad (a la his Tony-award winning “Hairspray” performance) with a few indulgent muggings, but ...

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Review: Apollo’s Fire @ Cain Park 6/25/10 Apollo’s Fire, Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra, offered a slightly re-arranged version of last year’s popular “Come to the River” program on a perfect summer evening at Cain Park in Cleveland Heights. The ensemble, led by Jeannette Sorrell, traditionally performs in more enclosed spaces than the semi-open amphitheater at the park, so the question of the night was “Can they do it? How will they sound amplified?” and “Can we ...

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