By Glenda Rice Collins
Tulsa, Okla. USA–Contemporary updates to set designs and lighting brought enhanced relevance to the timeless story of commitment and deceit contained within the 1904 Giacomo Puccini opera classic, Madama Butterfly, and its sumptuous score. A stellar cast, with several Tulsa Opera debuts, prevailed at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center last weekend.
By Glenda Rice Collins (Updated 2-20-20)
Oklahoma City, Okla. USA — From the recent production of Federico Garcia Lorca’s Spanish classic, Blood Wedding, at the University of Oklahoma (OU) arts district in Norman –(see a related 2-13-20 article, Renegades…, on this website) –to last weekend’s Oklahoma City Ballet staging of William Shakespeare’s tragic Romeo & Juliet love story at Civic Center Music Hall, reminders loom forth of the fragility of life, and how frequently death is courted as the permanent solution to a temporary situation. Continue reading
Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma, Norman
By Glenda Rice Collins (Updated 2-16-20)
Norman, Okla. — Definitions of ‘renegade’ run the gamut from rebel, traitor, and betrayer to the more appropriate concepts for my recent University of Oklahoma arts district observations: revolutionary, radical, and runaway, to define artists, architects, and dramatists, along with musical theater themes and characters. Continue reading
By Glenda Rice Collins, Updated 1-3-20
Bartlesville, Okla., USA — As media and culture analyst, author Marshall McLuhan said decades ago, “The medium is the massage…it does something to people. It takes hold of them. It rubs them off, it massages them and bumps them around, chiropractically, as it were…The poet, the artist, the sleuth – whoever sharpens our perception tends to be antisocial; rarely “well-adjusted,” he cannot go along with currents and trends…There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.” Continue reading
By Glenda Rice Collins (Updated October 13, 2019)
Bartlesville, Okla., USA — The journey back from illness, physical injuries, and any of life’s temporary setbacks, can be overwhelming with new demands and limitations; or at times, uplifting, if we remember to ‘stop and smell (and perhaps re-arrange) the roses,’ despite the thorns! Frida Kahlo’s Garden, on view at the Price Tower Arts Center through October 20, 2019, provides new inspiration for a life well-lived with nature, and focus beyond pain. Continue reading
By Glenda Rice Collins (Updated September 27, 2019)
Bartlesville, Okla., USA — Personal injury along with physical and mental duress can derail the best of intentions for a fulfilling life. To restore a semblance of “balance,” — Get thee to a beach, and get back to the arts! Continue reading
By Glenda Rice Collins
Tulsa, Okla., USA — Bursting with passion, lust and torture, magnetic characters, and centered in an exotic, fairy-tale setting in Peking legendary times, Tulsa Opera’s 2:30 p.m. Sunday matinee, April 29th presentation of Puccini’s Turandot at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center marks the final main stage production of the company’s impressive 70th Anniversary Season. Continue reading
Rob Glaubitz
News from Rob Glaubitz, Artistic Director
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — Painted Sky Opera features OKC native Molly Cason Johnson as the comically terrible singer Florence Foster Jenkins in Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins continuing at 8 p.m. Feb. 24 and March 2 – 3; and at 2 p.m. Feb. 25 and March 4 at the intimate CitySpace Theatre within Civic Center Music Hall.
By Glenda Rice Collins Updated 2-14-18
TULSA, Okla. USA — This past weekend’s North American premiere of Derek Deane’s Strictly Gershwin ballet extravaganza, presented by Tulsa Ballet, proved to be a fitting and well-received homage to the genius and versatility of American composer George Gershwin and the staying-power of his music. Continue reading
News From Oklahomans for the Arts: Oklahomans advocating to increase support of the arts, culture and arts education across Oklahoma.
A message from executive director Julia Kirt:
“Oklahoma’s arts and culture nonprofits generated direct economic activity of $872,830,632 in Fiscal Year 2015. Continue reading
Glenda Rice Collins 