Good on Elvis for risking the ridicule of a blinkered pop world with this unprecedented (for him, certainly, and most anyone short of Kurt Weill) and quite lovely album of bitchy, wise, and funny art songs accompanied by strings. His freshest, most evolved work in years. --Jeff Bateman
This Swan Lake was the unexpected popular hit of 1996, when radical choreographer Matthew Bourne took Tchaikovsky's traditional ballet by the scruff of the neck and reworked it with a myriad of modern influences and themes to astonishing effect. Seldom have the dark psychological riptides at the heart of so many classical ballets been so brilliantly exposed. The Prince (Scott Ambler) is a ...
The songbook is familiar to a generation of theater-goers. Antonio Banderas is at least as good a singer as John Travolta was in Grease. And there are three star turns from the Material Girl--the celebrated "You Must Love Me," as well as "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina," and "Another Suitcase in Another Hall." --Jeff Bateman