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Review: 'Gospel According to the Other Mary' Emerges Reborn

LOS ANGELES TIMES
By Mark Swed
Kelly O'Connor, left, plays Mary 
CALIFORNIA---"The Gospel According to the Other Mary" is now another "Other Mary," the "Mary" we have been waiting for. John Adams' Eastertide combination of Passion and oratorio was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and given its premiere late last spring at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Impressive and stirring as it was, the work felt a masterpiece still in the making. "The Other Mary" came back Thursday night, revised by the composer and now staged by Peter Sellars, who also compiled the libretto. The work's great ambitions have been realized. But the essence of "The Other Mary" is rebirth. Adams' representation of it, whether in the most beautiful Passover scene in all of music or the delicate orchestral effects describing baby frogs bursting forth from suckholes, are musical reasons to embrace life. [link]
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Norton Wright | International Review of Music said…
New Yorker Magazine’s jazz critic Whitney Balliett in 1959 shorthanded a definition of jazz as “the sound of surprise.” So today, when so very little in the arts genuinely surprises, the shock and awe generated by contemporary composer John Adams and director/librettist Peter Sellars is the real deal. They truly have “jazz hearts” as their The Gospel According to the Other Mary proves.
Sat Mar 16, 10:35:00 AM EDT
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