CultureVulture

The newish opera “Lili Elbe” made its American premiere at Santa Fe Opera on August 1. It tells the story of the eponymous Danish painter, one of the first people to undergo experimental gender assignment surgery. Elbe died in 1931 after an attempted uterine transplant. “The Danish Girl,” a movie based on the same story, starred Eddie Redmayne as Lili, and was released in 201...

Winner of the 1989 Tony Award for Best Musical, “City of Angels” has never been revived on Broadway, despite having a devoted cult following (that also includes this reviewer.) A sparkling new production at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine continues to make the case for bringing the sh...

Like The Odyssey, Matt Johnson’s much anticipated biopic is an adaptation of a classic “manly man” text (Kitchen Confidential) that asks to be judged less by its historical accuracy than the effectiveness of its mythmaking.

For example, the film’s charismatic romantic lead (Emilia Jones) may bring a bit too much 2020s swagger to the 1970s setting ...

Barry Walters history of GLBTQ music post-Stonewall is a deep dive into a queer music diaspora and the artists who drove it, however coded and those who burst out of the closet with mightiest realness. Walters’ was on the scene for all of it, reporting for the Village Voice, The Advocate, Rolling Stone, and Spin. He hung out in the legendary DJ booths in the trendiest gay clu...

Opera is supposed to be the “complete” art form because it combines music, drama, poetry, visual design, movement, and performance into one experience. Out of all these, dance, or “movement” gets short shrift regularly at Santa Fe Opera. “Eugene Onegin,” the third opera in repertory this summer, is a case in point. Choreographer Athol Farmer and Gary McCann, the scenic and co...