San Diego Arts

Boston Marriage at Compass Theatre
A play about women from a guy's guy
Hillcrest's Compass Theatre postponed its production of David Mamet's "Boston Marriage" from spring to fall. The wait was worth it.If anything, David Mamet is a "guy's guy" as a playwright. From sleazy real estate salesmen ... [More]

Bach Collegium San Diego Performs Handel's "Dixit Dominus"
Period Music that Packs a Punch
The revival and rediscovery of Baroque music has had more incarnations than Cher has scheduled farewell appearances. In 1829, Felix Mendelssohn launched the Bach revival with his performance of J. S. Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" in Berlin, a ... [More]

Bent at Diversionary Theatre
Broadway's first gay play at 30
"Bent," now playing through November 22 as a co-production of Diversionary Theatre and ion theatre, was arguably the first gay play to have a Broadway run. There could well be dispute about this statement among purists, for "Bent" ... [More]

Mozart "Requiem" at Copley Hall
Popular mythology and movie lore would have us believe that Mozart composed his glorious "Requiem" for himself in an otherworldly premonition of his untimely demise at age 35. This is at most a half-truth, for when Mozart signed the ... [More]

American Artists from the Russian Empire at the San Diego Museum of Art
Revolutionizing Art by Russian Émigrés
Vosdanig Anouk Adoian, Leah Berlyavskaya, and Markus Rotkevich are internationally famous artists from your art history books who are better known respectively as Arshile Gorky, Louise Nevelson, and Mark Rothko. These influential ... [More]

'LIVE Performance' at SDSU's Studio Theater
An unexpected extemporaneous experiment
It was clearly billed as a performance and assembled some of San Diego's best dance artists, but the "LIVE Performance" on Saturday at SDSU's Studio Theater turned out to be an improvisation jam, which was a bittersweet ... [More]

Emerson String Quartet Plays UCSD
Conrad Prebys Concert Hall--the Stradivarius of Venues
In music as in fashion, the designer label can mean everything. Violins by Stradivari, Amati and Guarneri; pianos by Steinway and Boesendorfer: everyone knows that these instrument-makers represent the pinnacle of their craft, and performers covet ... [More]

San Diego Ballet's Fall Repertoire at the Lyceum
Not Diaghilev's Firebird
We hear Stravinsky's ominous polyphonic music, Prince Ivan captures a magical Firebird, they struggle, and she gives him a magic feather in exchange for her life. Their pas de deux is passionate and a paradox. It is the Firebird and ... [More]

Shanghai Quartet Plays La Jolla
A Surfeit of Schubert
The La Jolla Music Society launched its regular season Saturday (October 17) with a chamber concert at Sherwood Auditorium featuring the Shanghai Quartet and guest cellist Lynn Harrell. Had not the echoes of this August's SummerFest programs still ... [More]

Joyful Noise at Lamb's Players Theatre
Half a Hallelujah
"Joyful Noise," Lamb's Players Theatre's revival of its 1999 hit, imagines a political history behind the London premiere of George Fredrick Handel's oratorio, "Messiah." The concept, while interesting, loses something in the ... [More]