by Bill Marx

Attention Readers: The Arts Fuse has moved — its new address is http://artsfuse.org/

The Arts Fuse began as my blog after the untimely end of NPR/WBUR Arts Online. But, as more writers and critics wanted to make their voices heard, the blog became a magazine. So, I decided to make it a New [...]

The complete Women of Will is an exhausting adventure, led by a manically enthused and deeply generous and talkative tour director who also is a fabulous actor.
Reviewed by Susan Miron
Women of Will. Written and performed by Tina Packer. Directed by Eric Tucker. Featuring Tina Packer and Nigel Gore. At Shakespeare & Company, Lenox, MA, September [...]

By Caldwell Titcomb
September 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29: Free Wednesday afternoon concerts continue throughout the month. September 1: Pianist Benjamin Warsaw plays works by Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, Liszt, and Warsaw himself. September 8: A further celebration of Schumann’s bicentenary brings a program of songs, with soprano Lisa Lynch, mezzo Carola Emrich-Fisher, tenor Jason Sabol, [...]

Every single player and singer seemed thrilled to be performing this music, absorbed in it, attentive to their masterful conductor and having a good time. It made me think how often that is not the case at symphony concerts.
By Helen Epstein
There were no star soloists or conductors around on Friday night and since the TMC [...]

Jonathan Franzen’s new novel is the talk of the town, but does it have anything to say?
Freedom: A Novel, by Jonathan Franzen. Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 576 pages, $28.
Reviewed by Tommy Wallach
In two days, Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux will publish Freedom, the new novel by Jonathan Franzen whose last book, The Corrections, made just [...]

By Helen Epstein
After some peculiar programming last week, Tanglewood’s current weekend got off to a rousing start on Thursday night as Garrick Ohlsson gave a haunting, introspective, and idiosyncratic performance of Chopin. The program, emotion-packed and filled with delicacies as though the pianist could not bear to leave anything out, included nocturnes and mazurkas, Ballade [...]

A whole lot of deconstruction of the classics going on this month, along with productions of scripts by familiar homegrown names, from William Inge and David Mamet to Sarah Ruhl. A visit from a master puppeteer and a show about race that’s “recommended for mature audiences” look intriguing.
By Bill Marx
The Real Inspector Hound by Tom [...]

In his latest novel, Michael Cunningham writes about Manhattan’s art world with canny insight and sympathy. But he goes beyond that, anchoring his story not only in beauty, as it is constantly reconceived and imagined, but in considerations of love, sex, morality, and mortality.

By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 256 pages, [...]

For all the hand-wringing in the media about the death rattle of jazz, what with record stores closing and radio stations losing listeners, Newport reminds you that the art form is alive and well, with a growing audience of people of all ages and races.
By Charles McEnerney, Host + Producer, Well-Rounded Radio
Both the Newport [...]

Reviewed by Helen Epstein
I saw Shakespeare & Company’s excellent production of Richard III in Lenox, MA last weekend (through September 5 at Founders’ Theatre), with an exceptionally strong ensemble that was kicked into high gear by a high-energy performance from John Douglas Thompson in the title role.
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