TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/062491/0624490.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.6 KB | 140 lines

                                                                                CRITICS' VOICES, Page 8


    ART

    LIUBOV POPOVA RETROSPECTIVE, Los Angeles County Museum of
Art. Though she died at 35 in 1924, Popova is considered one of
the leading artists of the Russian avant-garde. She was a
determined painter with a passionate sense of the edge where
formal research bursts into sparks and arpeggios of lyric
feeling. June 23 through Aug. 18.

    PLEASURES OF PARIS FROM DAUMIER TO PICASSO, Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston. Paris in the late 19th century was a Mecca of
entertainment, from cafes and cabarets to ballet, opera and
theater. This exhibition captures that effervescent era in
paintings, prints and drawings by such artists as Manet, Degas,
Toulouse-Lautrec and Cassatt. Through Sept. 1.

    BOOKS

    THE IRONY TOWER by Andrew Solomon (Knopf; $25). Glasnost
brought the best of times and the worst of times to the Soviet
Union's avant-garde artists. While giving them new freedoms and
access to lucrative Western markets, it has destroyed the sense
of community that nurtured their artistic vision and shaped
their values. Solomon shares their triumphs and disappointments
in this vivid, poignant and often hilarious narrative.

    WOODY ALLEN by Eric Lax (Knopf; $24). Seldom is heard an
embarrassing word, but this biography gets its facts straight
and -- in something of a literary coup -- reaps the benefits of
its subject's cooperation. Now if Woody Allen would only consent
to tell this story on his own.

    THEATER

    A DOLL'S HOUSE. Director Ingmar Bergman gives Ibsen's
landmark drama of women's liberation a poignancy and tension
comparable to the best in his films by trimming the chitchat and
keeping all the clashing characters onstage at all times. The
Royal Dramatic Theater of Sweden's production, in Swedish with
English translation via headphones, is at the Brooklyn Academy
of Music this week only.

    THE MOST HAPPY FELLA. A Frank Loesser minifestival seems
to be under way with a superb staging of this musical drama
about a mail-order bride at Connecticut's Goodspeed Opera House
in East Haddam and another planned at the New York City Opera,
and with a revival of his Guys and Dolls that is scheduled to
open on Broadway next spring.

    MOVIES

    BEGOTTEN. The Authentic Weirdie award goes to this
nightmare classic from E. Elias Merhige. In violent chiaroscuro
images, the film tells a primal story of man's birth, torture,
death and rebirth. This one-of-a-kind movie (you wouldn't want
there to be more than one) makes Eraserhead seem like Ernest
Saves Christmas.

    WHAT ABOUT BOB? John Candy usually plays the man who came
to dinner and stayed too long (and ate too much), but this time
Bill Murray is the nerd determined to stick to his psychiatrist
like Krazy Glue. Murray and Richard Dreyfuss are terrific in
Frank Oz's pretty good comedy of discomfort.

    MUSIC

    VIOLENT FEMMES: WHY DO BIRDS SING? (Slash/Reprise).
Ornery, typically strange and downright swell. When these three
tie into a song like Life Is a Scream, they make the inside of
your head sing like Janet Leigh in her Psycho shower.

    BEETHOVEN: THE LATE PIANO SONATAS, VOL. 1 (Dorian
Recordings). Sonatas Nos. 28 and especially 29 (the
"Hammerklavier") are immense in their emotional range and
technical challenges. The contrapuntal writing is Olympian, the
fugues exalted. Andrew Rangell possesses the intelligence and
dexterity to reckon nobly with these humbling conceptions.

    THE FATS WALLER PIANO SOLOS (Bluebird). There has never
been a more joyous jazzman than this two-fisted stride pianist,
whose artistry is brilliantly captured here.

    TELEVISION

    THE MAGIC FLUTE (PBS, June 19, 8 p.m. on most stations).
Artist David Hockney designed this Metropolitan Opera production
of Mozart, starring Kathleen Battle.

    WITHOUT WARNING: THE JAMES BRADY STORY (HBO, June 20, 24).
Beau Bridges brings grit and not too much sentimentality to the
role of President Reagan's former press secretary, who was
felled by a bullet meant for the President, and is now the
symbolic leader of the nation's gun-control movement. The film's
camp highlight, though, is Bryan Clark's hyperkinetic
impersonation of Reagan.

    ETCETERA

    TEXAS FESTIVAL. A Lone Star hoedown at Washington's
Kennedy Center, highlighting the Houston Ballet performing a
Paul Taylor boogie set to Andrews Sisters hits. This week only.

    NEW YORK CITY BALLET. Peter Martins' Ash continues his
partnership with composer Michael Torke. Through June 30.

    LE SAX HOT

    SIDNEY BECHET: THE COMPLETE VICTOR MASTER TAKES
(Bluebird). THE COMPLETE SIDNEY BECHET ON BLUE NOTE (available
from Mosaic, 35 Melrose Place, Stamford, Conn. 06902). Born in
New Orleans in 1897, clarinetist and soprano saxophonist Sidney
Bechet was one of the most talented and influential jazz
musicians who ever blew a horn. As Louis Armstrong did for the
trumpet, Bechet turned the soprano sax into a powerful solo
voice. If Armstrong went on to achieve greater fame, Bechet had
the more interesting life: affairs with Josephine Baker, Bessie
Smith and Tallulah Bankhead; deportation from Britain; gunfights
in Paris; and finally, ascension to the status of a national
hero in France, where he died in 1959. Along the way, the
hot-tempered Creole managed to record hundreds of tunes,
including such classics as Summertime, Strange Fruit and Petite
Fleur. These two digitally remastered sets, both of them
copiously documented and illustrated, contain the bulk of his
U.S. recorded work.


By TIME's Reviewers. Compiled by Andrea Sachs.