MET LIVE HD TOSCA WITH PATRICIA RACETTE AND ROBERTO ALAGNA

MET LIVE HD TOSCA
U.S. Encore Wednesday,  November 13, 2013 6:30pm local time
Canadian Encores Saturday,  December 7, 2013 12 Noon local time
Monday,  December 16, 2013 6:30pm local time

 Roberto Alagna and Patricia Racette in the title roles

George Gagnidze as the evil Baron Scarpia and with Patricia Racette as Floria Tosca below

Roberto Alagna as the painter and rebel sympathizer Mario Cavarodossi


Met Opera Live HD brought out two of the Metropolitan Opera's most enduring stars, Patricia Racette and Roberto Alagna, to bring renewed vitality to the most performed opera in Met history, Giacomo Puccini's Tosca.

With humongous sets and a dark, grim production by Luc Nondy, Racette gives a passionate performance as the love-struck diva Floria Tosca. The object of her affection is the painter and the painter and revolutionary sympathizer Mario Cavaradossi, sung with dramatic flair by Met favorite Roberto Alagna. Bass-baritone George Gagnidze is deliciously evil as the smarmy villain Baron Scarpia.

Suffice to say that the pllot and the tragic ending come as no surprise. Indeed, many in the audience were humming along to Puccini's famous arias. Scarpia is chilling as he sings the aria "Va Tosca," at the end of Act One, when he declares "Iago had a handkerchief, I have a fan," referring to the famous plot of Othello, in which the title character is driven to murder his wife in a jealous rage fanned by a misplaced handerchief. Who cannot help but be moved by Tosca's emotional Vise d'Arte or Cavaradossi's "E lucevan le stelle," in the Final Act. Alagna, in particular, infused his character with an air of authenticity. "After all, he is half French, half Italian, just as I am," he declared to Met Live interviewer and Met diva Renee Fleming. "He is!" he said of the character. His mother is French!" and proceeded to give salutations to the global  Live HD audience kin both French and Italian to underscore his point.

Opening the Second Act is the scene where Scarpia is amusing himself with a collection of female "escorts. Seen in the virtual altogether in previous productions, they were swathed in feather boas and flowing shawls in this Live HD production. Tosca, who is subsequently lured to Scarpia's den and forced to witness the arrest and torture of her lover, Cavaradossi, is driven to murder the scheming Scarpia with his own steak knife after pretending to be seduced by him. The murder sets off the tragic string of events that followed, fueled by her mislaid trust in the word of an avowed snake, Scarpia, that she and Cavardossi will be allowed to go free after a mock execution.

Tosca will be seen in Encore Performance in theatres across the country Wednesday evening at 6:30pm local time. Check local listings for locations or visit metopera.org or fathomevents.com.

Spike Jonze strikes a modern love note with "her" starring Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson

Film explores love in the age of technology and our absorbing obsession with personal information devices

Reviewed on the closing day of the New York Film Festival,  October 12, 2013
News conference photos by Dwight Casimere


NEW YORK-One of the enduring scenarios of modern urban life is riding the subway, hearing the announcement over the p.a. system that riders should conceal all personal information devices, tablets and cell phones while, at the same time, almost everyone on board is absorbed with texting, talking on their cell phone, reading a kindle or listening to music in their earbuds, which means they never heard the announcement in the first place.  Click that image ahead in the not-to-distant future to the world of Oscar-nominated director Spike Jonze and his latest tome from Warner Bros. and Annapurna Pictures, "her, " starring Joaquin Phoenix as a professional writer, who works in a cubicle for a computer personalized letter writing service, composing moving, personal letters for people to send to loved ones. Joaquin's character is recently divorced. Empty and hurting inside, his letters are the envy of everyone who works at the service as he pours his deepest emotions into letters that reveal his creative side and his true aspiration to become a great novelist.


Set in a futuristic vision of Los Angeles, shot partially amongst the towering high-rises of Shanghai, Phoenix's character, Theodore, is quickly introduced to a new computer operating system named "Samantha" (voiced with Godiva chocolate silkiness by Scarlett Johansson), which quckly establishes an emotional connection with the lonely Theodore, responding to his every mood, bolstering his ego, and fostering a deep psychological bond.  Through Samantha, Theodore supplants his lingering emotional umbilical chord to his ex-wife Catherine (Rooney Mara), and begins to distance himself to his friend and co-worker, Amy (Amy Adams), with whom there's the possibility to a budding romance.
 He is completely immersed in Samantha and is enthralled by her every word. It is a cautionary tale which addresses our times and our obsession with technology.

In a news conference following the film's screening at he 51st New York Film Festival, director Jonze was joined by Joaquin Phoenix and his co-stars Amy Adams, Rooney Mara and Olivia Wilde (Theodore's failed blind date).  "I got the idea from toying around with an online instant messaging system that displayed a type of artificial intelligence. You could send a message that said, like, "Hello," and it would answer back, "How are you?" and you would say, "Oh, I'm not so good," and it would answer "Oh, that's too bad."  That's when I had this buzz of 'Wow, I'm actually talking to this thing! Then it quickly devolved into the idea of a man, having a relationship with an entity like that with a fully-formed consciousness, and the idea of what would happen if you had a real relationshiop that you could write into a love story and a movie."

Joaquin Phoenix plays a moody, detached character who is dogged by bouts of depression, self-doubt and lingering anxiety (now there's a stretch!). The biggest challenge for him, was largely playing against a character that is unseen throughout the entire film, causing him to act in a vacuum. "It wasn't really that hard for me, because I walk around the house talking to myself all the time, talking to myself, reciting lines and imagining scenes. I mean, I'm rehearsing all the time. I am an actor, after all." Johansson, who was, almost appropriately, not present at the news conference or the premiere, Closing Night screening, was acutally called in during post-production by Jonze, to replace the voiceings of British actress Samantha Morton, a two-time Oscar nominee and Jonze alumna (Synecdoche, New York, which Jonze produced.) Six months after production on the film ended, Jonze realized that Morton's aloof portrayal of the central character didn';t quite make the connection with Theodore that he had hoped for. He quickly shifted gears, brought in Johansson, who was finishing up her Broadway run of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." Phoenix came into the studio to bounce his lines off Johansson to create the kind of engaging rapport that became the heart of the film.

"The thing about Samantha is that, unlike human beings, she has no baggage, so she can create his kind of utopian relationship that we can only imagine, " Jonze reflected. "Unlike his blind date, who completely unravels. She has an enormous amount of pain and baggage from past relationships and projects all of that on every word that Theodore is saying. Samantha, on the other hand, is open-minded. She has no past and only sees the best in him."

"her" comes to theatres everywhere January 10, 2014.

Once Upon A Dream starring The Rascals recalls glory days of "Blue Eyed Soul"

Special to Dwight The Connoisseur


Once Upon a Dream starring The Rascals is following up on its critically acclaimed, sold out Broadway engagement, with a national tour that is bringing rave reviews and, more importantly, audience cheers for the show that literally invites them to dance in the aisles.  Broadway In Chicago presents the Original Band Members, Felix Cavaliere, Eddie Brugati, Dino Danellian and Gene Cornish, in an eye-popping show for five performances only through November 10 at the Cadillac Palace Theatre. The show returns to Broadway for the Holidays.

 Although in their late '60s, The Original Rascals showed up in fine voice and great form to relive their former glory days when they dominated the spotlight of fame, topping the charts in the early 1960s before the start of the "British Invasion" and the arrival of that then, little known group, The Beatles. "Believe iit or not, the Beatles opened for US," proclaimed lead singer Eddie Brigati in a larger-than-life talking head projected comments interspersed with dazzling vintage video clips of The Rasals in concert and other performers from the Soul Music hey day of the '60s and '70s.  One particularly effective video featured rare footage of a soul group dancing to the live music of The Rascals. The digitally remastered video was synchronized so that the dancer's movements coincided with the beat of the live music. Masterful!

The narrative in the talking heads recounts the groups ups and downs, from the earliest days when Brigati was shot in a childhood prank, "the bullets still in there. It only hurts when I love. It's too bad that the world is somehow always so tragically funny!"

Beginning with an introduction by Ed Sullivan gleaned from their appearance on his landmark CBS Television show in 1968, the show proceeded with a spirited romp through their many  hits, including"Good Lovin'," "Lonely Too Long," "It's A Beautiful Morning," "How Can I Be Sure. "

The second act of the show begins with a beautifully sung rendition of what is probably their biggest hit, "Groovin'," and continues with their landmark nod to the Civil Rights Movement, "People Just Wanna Be Free," which was preceeded by an emphatic statement from Brigati, declaring that  "the Rascals were always at the forefront of Civil Rights. We did not tolerate discrimination in any way, form or fashion. In fact, we insisted that all of the opening acts for our concerts be black groups." In the early days of their recording career, the sound of the group was virtually indistinguishable from that of black groups that were popular at the time, such as The Temptations. They were, as the Chicago Sun Times reported recently, the first white band signed to Atlantic Records, long the home of such legendary African American artists as Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett. Produced by Steven Van Zandt, the multi-faceted singer, songwriter, producer and actor, best known as guitarist with Bruce Sprinsteen's E Street Band and Tony Soprano's right-hand man in the long-running character of Silvio Dante (1999-2007), along with his wife, Maureen, the show is musically and visually stunning with Stage, Video and Lighting Design by Marc Brickman and the terrific Music and Lyrics by Rascal originals Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati.

Van Zandt wrote the show, and it flows from start to finish with the audience on their feet throughout. Van Zandt himself sets the tone of the show from the outset, announcing over the loudspeaker while the stage is still dark that audience members are welcome to take out their iPhones and take photos and videos, dance in the aisles, sing-along and "pretty much do any F....ng" thing you want!!!" The appreciative cheers from the audience resounded throughout the night.

"The Invisible Woman" at the New York Film Festival

Ralph Fiennes reveals complex character of British literary icon Charles Dickens
Author's real life nothing like the "Christmas Carol" we associate with him


Reviewed by Dwight Casimere at the 51st New York Film Festival October 9, 2013

NEW YORK--Charles Dickens is best known as the author of "A Christmas Carol," which will soon be staged around the world by local theatre companies and shown in both black and white and color film versions from this and the last century, especially as the Christmas Holidays approach. From outward appearances, his is an avuncular, iconic figure that embodies the intellect and morality of pre-Victorian England. That soft-focus, idealized version of his personal history is completely cast aside in Fienne's latest directorial and starring effort, "The Invisible Woman," which shows Dickens to be a conflicted, complex man with a dark, troubled side. Coincidentally, he was a philanderer who all but cast aside his dutiful wife Catherine to pursue a year's long secret affair with a wanna be teenaged actress Nelly Ternan. Cumulative accounts of the story, culled from personal letters written by Dickens and his emotionally bruised wife and accounts from friends and associates, was the basis for the brilliant screenplay. Adapted by Screenwriter Abi Morgan from a biography, "Nelly Ternan" by Claire Tomalin, the film portrays the story of Dicken's illicit relationship with Nelly Ternan, played skillfully by Felicity Jones, as a complex woman whose aspirations are totally out of step with the society in which she lives. Nelly has ambitions to be a great actress. Dickens has the ambition to get in her drawers. He even has the audacity to ask her mother, in so many veiled terms, for permission to do so. The vague promise of a career is enough to convince mom that, maybe 'an arrangement' isn't such a bad idea since there are few opportunities for women without a male sponsor and Dickens, with all his fame, prestige and fortune, can certainly offer her a secure life, even in the context of a clandestine affair, that going it on her own could not. Such was the lot of women in the 19th century.

In the time of his greatest literary success (Oliver Twist, The Life and Adventures of Nickleby,  A Christmas Carol), which was the mid 19th century( the 1830s-1850s. Dickens died in 1870.) Dickens enjoyed a level of celebrity that is more akin to what is experienced today than anything in his time. His books sold in the thousands and in several countries, at a time when there was no Amazon.com. His public readings of his works were sold out months in advance. He lectured and traveled extensively, making two speaking trips to America, at a time when that was no mean feat. In his public appearances, he not only performed readings of his works, but he also spoke out against the institution of slavery and offered solutions to the problem. His sell-out performances were perhaps the first to introduce ticket scalpers to the public lexicon. They routinely gathered outside his events, selling tickets at far above their face value to willing participants. Dickens later wrote of his American experience in his memoirs, entitled "American Notes."  "They flock around me as if I were an idol," he wrote. In his notes, he seemed to at first,  revel in the experience, but later, complained of the invasion of his privacy and criticized what he viewed as American gregariousness and crude habits.

The film also casts Nelly's torment within the contemporary context of the struggles women faced in Victorian England. "The reality is that women were almost entirely dependent on the earnings of men. "Mrs Ternan, the mother, tacitly allows this relationship to happen," Fiennes said. "What's she going to do? She risks social ostracisiation for her daughter, but the security and the benefits of support of Dickens perhaps outweigh the risk of breaking the taboo." Kristin Scott Thomas plays Nelly's apprehensive, but practical-minded mother. who finally acquiesces.

Fiennes appeared at the New York Film Festival news conference with Joanna Scanlan, who portrays Dicken's wife Catherine, who is all but discarded after bearing Dickens ten children. One of the most emotionally charged scenes in the film is one that occurs midway through, when Dickens forces her to return a ring he had specially made for Nelly, but which was mistakenly delivered by the jeweler to the Mrs. Catherine Dickens is obviously humiliated. but resigns herself to the situation and manages to present the ring to Nelly with a sense of dignity and grace in the face of obvious emotional defeat.

According to Fiennes, there's historical evidence that Dickens may have fathered not just one, but possibly two illegitimate children as the result of his illicit liaison. "Charles Dickens absolutely had a child with Nelly Ternan," Fiennes affirmed.

Originally, Fiennes said, he had sought another actor to protray Dickens, when he was first handed the project by the BBC. "But things fell through and the more I read about Dickens, the more intrigued I became about the complexities of this man and decided I wanted to portray him myself."

What was it like directing himself as an actor? Fiennes was blunt, but in a self-deprecating humorous way. "Ralph Fiennes the actor can be extremely difficult, walking off the set and all. So can Ralph Fiennes the director. He can be pretty tough to deal with too!"

Dickens could run, but he couldn't hide from his deception, especially in his writing

 Dwight Casimere with Ralph Fiennes at the 51st New York Film Festival

 Ralph Fiennes with co-star Joanna Scanlan at the news conference

. Fiennes claims that, while Dickens kept their involvement under wraps, there were clearly acknowledgements, even inspiration for characters and situations, that were revealed in his writing. "Great Expectations" was clearly written at a time when we know he was involved with Ellen Ternan. It's even to the extent to which you can clearly identify elements of Nelly in the female characters he writes, especially in his later books," Fiennes told a post screening news conference at the New York Film Festival."I actually feel his writing of female characters got much better after his involvement with Nelly."

"The Invisible Woman" reveals Dickens to be a flawed British national treasure. The fact that Dickens carried on the affair with the much-younger teenaged actress is clear evidence of the severe gap that existed between Dickens the writer and public figure and Dickens the man. "Dickens was tormented. He had huge extremes of emotion. We tend to get the sort of Christmas card image of Dickens-this smiling, jolly father-figure, but clearly, when you read more about him you find that he was a very disturbed man; a man in mental and emotional anguish," Fiennes said.

"Blue is the Warmest Color" is an unblinking look at young lesbian love

Film wins Canne Film Festival's Palm d'Or in unprecedented determination

promotional photos courtesy Sundance Select/IFC Films

New York news conference photos by Dwight Casimere

Reviewed by Dwight Casimere at the 51st New York Film Festival October 11, 2013

 Adele Exarchopoulos as high school student Adele in the coming-of-age romance/drama

 Director Abdellatif Kechiche and the film's stars Lea Seydoux and Adele Exarchopoulos jointly accept the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival

 Director Kechiche with the film's star Adele Exarchopoulos (center) at the New York Film Festival press screening

Lea Seydoux as the older Emma and Adele Exarchopoulos as the teenaged Adele in the sexually charged lesbian love story "Blue is the Warmest Color"

NEW YORK--Perhaps the most eagerly anticipated screening at the 51st New York Film Festival was the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner "Blue is

the Warmest Color" from Tunisian-born French director Abdellatif Kechiche and Sumdance Selects and IFC Films (USA). The film opened to solid revues and strong ticket sales in limited opening runs in New York and Los Angeles and received critical acclaim at recent screenings at the 49th Chicago International Film Festival. The film recieved the unusual distinction of being unanimously voted to win the festival's prestigious Palme d'Or award. In an unprecedented move, the jury, headed by Steven Spielberg, elected to give the award jointly to the director and the film's two female stars, Adele Exarchopoulos and and Lea Seydoux, making the actresses the only women besides Jane Campion to have won the festival's top award. On crafting its announcement, the jury said it was awarding the "three artists" involved in creating the movie, thus elevating the role of actors in the creative process and removing some of the "auteure" snobbery associated with previously limiting the award only to directors. 

Also titled  "La Vie d'Adele" (The Life of Adele) in the original French version, which won the Palm d'Or, the live-action romance/drama generated both considerable controversy and high praise for its explicit sex scenes which depicted unbridled lesbian lovemaking. The centerpiece, no-holds-barred (pardon the pun) lesbian sex scene in the three-hour movie lasts nearly ten minutes. Both actresses are shown in a virtually static,  single full-frame, full body 

shot that records their love-making. It is uninterupted, without any background music or audio, other than the sounds of their physical contact and there is no cutaway to relieve the visual tension. It is a powerful scene that is unrelenting in its brutal honesty. Admittedly titilating for a moment, it does begin to get a bit tedious about five minutes in. You're just about ready to take the obligatory afterglow nap before its all over. The same can be said for the rest of the film, which is beautifully shot, with almost every frame laboriously and meticulously mapped out, sometimes to the point of the obvious. To its saving grace, however,  there always seems to be some captivating nuance, some never to be duplicated emotional charge, no matter how many times it is telegraphed, and that happens frequently, that makes this one of the most compelling films of the year. It's easy to see why it won the Palm d'Or and in such spectacular fashion.

The great Steven Spielberg, who heads the Cannes jury, is quoted as saying the film is the best love story he has ever seen.

The two stars have been on a whirlwind global promotional tour and stopped recently to give a news conference at a press screening during the final days of the 51st New York Film Festival. Both readily admitted that the filming process was excruciating, with the explicit sex scene topping the list. To put it bluntly, according to the actors, it was not an easy shoot. "It was too difficult," said Exarchopoulos, who is not a lesbian, and who is, in fact, now dating her male co-star in the film, Jeremie Laheurte. He (director Kechiche)  asked me to do things that made me feel like a prostitute. I will never work with him again," she said,  tongue-in-cheek (again, pardon the extremely distasteful pun). The sex scene took ten days to shoot. "Abdell (the director) likes to take his time. He doesn't like fabrication. He doesn't want to see you act, he wants your soul," she said through an interpreter, provided by the film festival. Despite her protests, there's speculation that a sequel is already in the works.

 Exarchopoulos said she cut herself on a glass door during the fight scene between she and Seydoux, "He wanted us to really hit each other and continued shooting even after I was hurt." 

The film has already earned nearly a million dollars in sales in just a few weeks of limited release in New York and Los Angeles. It's drawing huge crowds as it rolls out in countries around the world and is being awaited with baited breath by audiences in this country for its eventual wider release in U.S. theaters.  "Blue is the Warmest Color" is a groundbreaking film that treats a sensitive subject with honesty and an unblinking eye. Go see it, just bring along a comfy seat cushion and lots of popcorn.

Met Live HD "The Nose" uses absurd humor, multi-media staging to attract younger audience

 Composer Dmitri Shostakovich

 Paulo Szot as the hapless bureaucrat Kovalyov and Police Inspector Andrey Popov

 Multi-media set designed by South African visual artist  William Kentridge

Shostakovich's adaptation of Chekhov landmark short story in Met Live HD Encore performance Wednesday, October 30, 2013 6:30pm local time

Live at the Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, New York City through December 12, 2013

Reviewed by Dwight Casimere

Photos courtesy Metropolitan Opera House-Ken Howard


NEW YORK--The Nose, based on short story of the same name by Russian satirical writer  Nikolai Gogol , is presented in a dazzling, multi-media revival production at the Metropolitan Opera House. With music by Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich and sets and multi-media conception by South African visual artist William Kentridge, utilizes multi-level staging, film and  video projection as well as imaginative costumes to create an all-encompassing visual and dramatic experience. Using what he calls "brutal humor," Kentridge uses the stage to project the central theme of  The Nose as a satire on the absurdity of modern society, its bureaucracies and hypocrisies.

 Polish-Brazilian operatic baritone Paulo Szot reprises his role as the hapless low-level St. Petersburg bureaucrat, Kovalyov,  who awakens one morning to find that his nose, severed by a drunken town barber, has suddenly run away to claim its own life as a higher level Soviet official. Conducted with a firm, but occassionally lilting touch by Russian conductor Pavel Smelkov, who shares podium duties during the opera's run through December 12 with Met favorite Valery Gergiev, who led the Met Premiere of The Nose in 2010, the opera achieves its goal if injecting humor into an otherwise look at society in a police state. Russian actor Andrey Popov is the Police Inspector, in a Groucho Marx inspired comic performance. British musical theatre actor Alexander Lewis, a graduate of the Met's Lindeman Yong Artist Development Program, cavorts across the stage in oversized costume, designed by Kentridge with Sabine Theunissen, as The Nose. Met soprano Patricia Racette served as the amicable Live in HD Host.

Having seen both the premiere live from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera and experiencing it Live in HD, which was transmitted to more than 1,950 movie theaters in 64 countries worldwide, it can be said that, in this case, the Live HD incarnation was the far superior of the two experiences. With so much going on both dramatically and visually on the Met stage, it was difficult to keep up with the fast-paced action while trying to read projected subtitles at the bottom of each wing of the stage. It was even more difficult to navigate viewing the translated libretto from the tiny screens on the backs of the audience seats while at the same time, retaining visual contact with the action on stage. It was all happening much to fast to make any sense of it! Met Live HD, with its neat, compact subtitles in bold white text placed strategically in the lower center of the screen, allowed the audience to retain visual contact with the performance while at the simultaneously reading the English translation of the Russian text.

William Kentridge spoke with Met General Manager Peter Gelb on camera during the Met Live HD intermission. "The great Russian playwright and aiuthor Anton Chekhov once described "The Nose" as the greatest short story ever written," he told Gelb while relaxing backstage during rehearsals. "The story is very simple, but it raises some complex questions about the heights of absurdity and contradiction we all face in modern society. The story itself was conceived at the very outset of modernism. Shostakovich's score with its dramatic bursts, further underlines the brutal satire of the story."

Dramatic tension and a good deal of wry comedy are created as the story quickly unfolds. "The story follows collegiate assessor Kovalyov has he goes on the absurd journey of trying to track down his nose, only to discover, to his horror, that his nose is now at  a higher bureaucratic rank than he is, and his nose refuses to speak to him." We see the nose in rear screen projection riding regally on a militarty horse, that disintegrates and reconstitutes itself at various times, hinting at the breakdown and erratic fluidity of modern society. The Stalinesque Police Inspector appears, first on a scaffold high above the stage, issuing edicts and warnings to the assembled teeming masses below. The Nose wanders through it all, delighting in its newly found privilege and independence, even appearing at one point, in the guise of the famed Russian dancer Anna Pavlova.  "So its really about what constitutes a person; how singular we are, yet how divided we are against ourselves.

"It's also about the tyranny of hierarchy. The set itself also exists as a huge screen for visual projection. At times the focus of the lighting is on the action and the singers and actors onstage, and then at times they're obliterated and are lost inside a huge projection, so that sense of things that seem solid becoming suddenly evanescent is a them that I'm very interest in."

The Nose in Met Live HD will have an Encore Performance in movie theaters Wednesday, October 30 at 6:30pm local time. The Canadian Encores takes place Saturday, November 30 at 12 Noon Eastern Time. Visit metopera.org or fathomevents.com for more information.

                                             

Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center

New York stop is culmination of national tour

Reviewed by Dwight Casimere
Photos by Ayano Hisa


NEW YORK--On the heels of a triumphant world tour, the Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club completed its subsequent U.S. tour with a two-night stand at Jazz at Lincoln Center. With respectable representation of New York's sizeable Cuban-American population jamming the Rose Theatre, along with a smattering of devout fans of the Latin Grammy Award winning ensemble, the performance was more like a homecoming than your standard concert. With the audience on its feet for much of their performance of Cuban and Latin jazz favorites, it wasn't long before they were dancing in their seats and literally, in the aisles. The sheer fervor of the singers and the driving beat of the percussion and bright, inventive horn and guitar solos and vivid melodic lines, affirmed the band's identity as a Cuban national treasure.


Orquesta Buena Vista Social Slub arrived on the international stage a decade ago with an Oscar-nominated documentary by acclaimed director Wim Wenders and a Grammy-winning album that has sold millions. The Orquestra draws huge crowds wherever it performs and recently wowed critics with its newest incarnation at venues such as the Monterey Jazz Festival, Davis Symphony Hall in San Francisco and Symphony Center in Chicago.

It was 2003 when the Cuban all-stars, then known as the Buena Vista Social Club arrived on United States stages in the wake of their unlikely and sudden fame. Sadly, the progression of time has taken away iconic founding members such as vocalist-guitarist Compay Segundo, vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer and pianist Ruben Gonzaliez. Fortunately, other founding-generation luminaries are still in place; 82 year old Omara Portuondo Pelaez (she'' be 83 October 29, Happy Birthday!!) reprises her earlier role as  lead singer. Prior to singing with the Buena Vista Social Club in its beginning years in the mid 1990's, she was a major star who has sung and danced with the likes of Nat King Cole and Chucho Valdes and is one of the original members of Cuba's fabled Cuarteto d'Aida. Gingerly led on stage by two smiling aides, all signs of infirmity disappeared when she launched into songs familiar to every Cuban in the house, many of whom sang along with gusto. These were the songs of their native land that had become almost anthems and a bitter-sweet reminder of the culture and sense of family many of them have left behind. Many sang and danced with abandon, reveling in the musical spell cast over them by the band. 72 year old Trumpeter Guajiro Mirabel is a founding member of the Buena Vista Social Club and was among the first musicians recruited by British producer Nick Gold to perform in the recording sessions that produced the multi-platinum album and groundbreaking concert documentary. Mirabel is a key figure in Cuban music and gave it his all for the Rose theatre concert. It's as if time has stood still for this highly energetic and innovative performer. Blistering trombone solos and heartfelt vocals from Trombonist and Musical Director Jesus Aguaje Ramos kept the lively pace going but the most arresting solos were those of Barbarito Torres on the mandolin shaped stringed instrument, the Laud, and its hanting tone and Guitarist-singer Eliades Ochoa who made a flashy entrance with his trademark cowbow hat and signature Paladin, "Have Gun Will Travel" black attire. Often called the Cuban Johnny Cash, his vocals on "El Cuarto de Tula" stole the show. After several encores, both the band and the audience danced through the exits after a transformative experience that turned the Rose theatre into a night in Old Havana.