Peter Mennin / Kiss Me, Kate

On this day in classical music: American composer Peter Mennin’s “Symphony No. 6” was given its premiere by the Louisville Orchestra in 1953. Mennin served as director of the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore before succeeding William Schuman as president of The Juilliard School in 1962. Mennin composed nine symphonies, several concertos and the well known “Canzona” for band. Listen to Robert Whitney and the Louisville Orchestra perform the finale of Mennin’s “Symphony No. 6.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRqv2ZnID-I

On this day in the musical theatre: A revival of Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me, Kate” opened on Broadway in 1999. Starring Brian Stokes Mitchell as Petruchio and Marin Mazzie as Kate, the revival ran for more than two years and earned five Tony Awards including one for Mitchell. Porter’s most successful musical was based on Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew.” Listen to Mazzie and Mitchell perform “So In Love.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qQcpIfTxqo

Musical musings: Avoiding the attitudes that are anathema to lively revivals of vintage musicals — reverence and condescension — the director Michael Blakemore and the choreographer Kathleen Marshall have shaped a show that is broad, brazen, often shameless and finally irresistible. The production, which doesn’t seem to have a thought in its giddy head beyond entertaining us as much as it’s entertaining itself, feels like one long ear-to-ear grin. The individual numbers and performances don’t all have the high sheen that, say, those in the revival of “Chicago” had when it first opened. But it possesses a wonderfully heady momentum that doesn’t let up, and it is to the show’s credit that you remember it less for individual, heightened moments than as one exhilarating whoosh. – Ben Brantley in The New York Times

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