Reviews

Review of No Talking by Andrew Clements

In the well written middle-grade novel No Talking, author Andrew Clements portrays a competition between the fifth-grade boys and the fifth-grade girls at Laketon Elementary School to determine which group can talk the least for 48 hours spread over three weekdays, beginning and ending with lunch period.  Dave Packer gets the idea of being silent from reading about Mahatma Gandhi.  In a moment of annoyance with Lynsey Burgess, Dave challenges Lynsey and the other girls to have this contest.  They accept the competition.  The rules allow the youngsters to use a maximum of three words if the children must respond to a teacher or other adult.  During the silent days, Lynsey serves as the ringleader of the girls, while Dave leads the boys.  Both children are “proud and stubborn” (chapter 5, p. 25). (more…)

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Review of La Traviata Performed by the Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera’s 2017 production of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata (The Fallen Woman) broadcast on PBS’s Great Performances on August 25, 2017 features spectacular singers.  Sonya Yoncheva as Violetta Valéry, Michael Fabiano as her lover Alfredo Germont, and Thomas Hampson as Alfredo’s father Giorgio Germont portray the opera’s strong emotions powerfully.  When they sing together, their voices blend in brilliant harmony.  By combining acts 2 and 3 without an intermission, this fast-paced production builds suspense and emotional intensity.  Nicola Luisotti conducts the orchestra flawlessly.  However, I question many of the choices of Director Willy Decker.  Setting the show in the twenty-first century, dressing all women except Violetta and Annina in male garb, emphasizing the huge clock, and having Dottore (Doctor) Grenvil constantly onstage distract the audience from the major themes of La Traviata. (more…)

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