Handel’s “Rodrigo” at the Gershwin.

We’ll take a wild guess and assume that George Frederich Handel never dreamed his opera Rodrigo, written in 1707 when he was 22 years old, would have its North American premiere nearly three hundred years later in a hotel lobby.

But on May 21, 23 and 25, Handel’s fifth opera will be performed in the lobby of the Gershwin Hotel, a move that trumps the Met and every other opera house in the hemisphere.

The premiere comes almost a year to the day after Almira, Konigin von Castilien, Handel’s first opera, made its North American debut before an audience of 75 in the Gershwin lobby (Anthony Tommasini gave the production a thumbs up in The New York Times).

The person responsible for Handel’s long-overdue premieres is Jennifer Peterson, founder and director of operamission, a plucky pick-up company that stages old and new operas in concert settings. Make that unexpected settings, like Bryant Park, Brooklyn’s Fort Green and the Gershwin, though to be fair, a place called Gershwin should embrace music. (more…)

“I’ve always thought it was a ridiculous name for a prison. Sing Sing. I mean, it sounds more like it should be an opera house or something.”   — Holly Golightly

And the Gershwin Hotel? It sounds like there should be music playing or something.  Maybe even opera.

For two nights this week, May 29 and 31, that’s precisely what happens — though it’s strains of George Friedrich Handel’s ALMIRA, Königin von Castilien, not Porgy & Bess, filling the sprawling red and orange lobby of this laid-back, art-filled hotel in the East 20s.

The Gershwin lobby, one of city’s most congenial (slouchy sofas, high drama decor, no one hounding you to buy drinks or be on your way), doubles as a performance space, attracting a clever line-up of new music, early music, jazz, poetry readings and opera.  The latter comes courtesy of operamission, a plucky, three-year-old pick-up company that stages operas new and old and sometimes manages to trump the Met. (more…)

Garin & Millet at M Salon

Hotels and piano bars go together like cocktail shakers and martinis. So why, in the city of Broadway and countless preternaturally talented musicians, has the hotel piano bar become a borderline endangered species?

Count Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle and the Rum House at the Edison among the plucky stalwarts that have staved off the twin threats of recession and changing music tastes and kept their lounge pianos playing. (more…)

Erin Markey and Adam Couperthwaite in Green Eyes.

It’s not news when a hotel room serves as a backdrop for a movie or photo shoot. But a play?

Welcome to Room 620 at the Hudson hotel. As noted previously here,  Green Eyes, a rarely seen one-act by Tennessee Williams, written in 1970 and published in 2008, is performed in this snug little suite through January 23.  Fortunately for claustrophobic types, the play is short – just 35 minutes – with just two characters, a warring pair of newlyweds honeymooning in a seedy New Orleans hotel room. (more…)

Hudson lobby.

It’s not exactly the comfort of strangers.

Green Eyes, a rarely seen one-act play by Tennessee Williams, dramatizes the nightmarish encounter of the Dunphys, a couple honeymooning in a New Orleans hotel room. Written in 1970 at the height of the Vietnam War – and unpublished until 2008 – the couple’s brutal assignation (he is an impotent vet traumatized by war, she is a ravenous, Williams harridan) translates the horrors of war into a violently deranged lovers quarrel. (more…)

Not so long ago, New York hotel bars were almost like supper clubs without the supper, a classic mix of martinis and live music, part Bobby Short, part Fabulous Baker Boys. For the price of a drink or two or three, a pianist, harpist or jazz trio would entertain you before you headed upstairs or back home.

Times change, fashions change, recessions happen. Cocktail entertainment still thrives at hotels if you look hard enough. Consider Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle, where the Loston Harris Trio and pianist Chris Gillespie tease standards most evenings. (more…)