Word: epicent
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...most rapturous melodies ever heard in Carnegie Hall poured out of that grand old barn last night. The occasion was the first English-language production of Kristina, a musical based on the four Emigrants novels by Wilhelm Moberg. Spanning two continents and the Atlantic in between, the three-hour epic has all the makings of a thrilling stage experience: noble peasants, dying children, powerful voices, the dream of a new land. Most of all, a superb score. No wonder that, at the end, cheers and a standing ovation greeted Kristina's creators: two spangled Swedes, Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus...
...Jumping from one crisis to another, Kristina may prove not only too epic but too episodic - and far too dour - for a Broadway audience. The age of the serious musicals, your Les Miz and Phantom of the Opera, ended abruptly when The Producers and Mamma Mia! showed that theatergoers preferred perky, gaudy, old-fashioned musical comedies. But Kristina should find a constituency among those who love hearing wonderful music sung by gifted voices. If any naughty folks last night recorded the show, they should immediately post some of its instant classics: Robert's devastating solo "Gold Can Turn to Sand...
...Instead, they went home, where Andersson had an even more ambitious idea: to compose Kristina fran Duvemala (Kristina from Duvemala) as a sung-through national epic, in a style that would span folk tunes, symphonies and musical theater. Ulvaeus, adapting the Moberg novels - which had served as the source for two popular Swedish films in the '70s, The Emigrants and The New Land - also had a radical notion: for the first time in his career, he'd write his lyrics in his native language...
...also in a lot of junk, like this week's Surrogates, an ambitious but sub-ordinary SF epic in which, as so often, Willis is better than his material. He keeps you watching, inspecting the carcass, and not just because there's not much else to look at. With his coiled poise and the compact gestures of someone who doesn't mind being scrutinized by the camera, Willis exudes worldly wariness and cosmic weariness, as if he'd achieved a state of Zen machismo. He offered a giant dose of this in the last and best Die Hard movie...
...sight of Afghan men camped in squalid settlements around Calais is hardly new. Over the past decade - and even before the 2001 Afghanistan war began - thousands of Afghans have traveled illegally on epic journeys that last weeks and cross several borders. They all have one goal in mind: to sneak aboard container trucks on ferry boats bound for Britain, where they see their best prospects. With no national identity cards in Britain, illegal immigrants for years have found it easier to escape notice there than in France, where police frequently check immigrants' documents in the streets. (Read "Postcard from Calais...