Messiah

Not even the sudden, magical, unscripted appearance of Godot himself - or maybe the Messiah, his possible alter ago - could save the lame production of Waiting for Godot that Amaryllis Theatre Company opened at the Adrienne Wednesday. I'm sure the Messiah would give it his best; it's what he does. The rest of us will have to settle for a Godot more like bad cooking than the heavenly theatrical hash Samuel Beckett created, and which debuted in 1953. In the mostly perfunctory Amaryllis version, codirected by Tom Reing and Amaryllis' producing artistic director Mimi Kenney Smith, you get all the ingredients and none of the taste.

YOU CAN set your watch by it. As soon as it becomes evident that President Obama is moving so fast to the left that he's tripping over Karl Marx, here come the paid apologists for the Democratic Party. You can see the desperation of Karl Frisch's argument (op-ed, "The Attack of the 'Isms,' " April 15) right off the bat when he has to reach for Michael Savage to attempt a pathetic justification of his shopworn argument. Savage is the right's answer to Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz, a fringe character with little or no morals who blurts out whatever is rattling around his head and is marginalized because his opinions carry little or no intellectual heft because they are paired with his bizarre behavior.

To love Handel's Messiah is to be its watchdog. Far from wearing out its welcome, Messiah's stature has grown continually: As Handel's other works are heard more often, the consistency and uniqueness of this perennial become increasingly apparent. Messiah remains a warhorse, but you don't want it kissed off with minimal rehearsal and inexpensive soloists, which was a possibility Sunday at the Kimmel Center, when the Philadelphia Orchestra initially seemed to be fielding its B team.

Henry McAdoo Jr., 92, of Lower Gwynedd, a retired company president and decorated World War II veteran, died Aug. 13 at home. Mr. McAdoo grew up in Fort Washington and graduated from St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H. After earning a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania, he joined the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, an Army National Guard unit. When the First Troop was activated during World War II, he served as an artillery forward observer in planes over North Africa, participated in the battles for Monte Cassino and Anzio in Italy and the invasion of southern France, and then fought in Germany.

On Wednesday evening, the Pennsylvania Ballet presented its largest and most ambitious production in memory - Robert Weiss' Messiah, danced to Handel's masterful oratorio. Weiss, a former Pennsylvania Ballet director and Balanchine dancer, choreographed the 2 1/2-hour ballet in 1998 for his newly formed Carolina Ballet. A decade later, it looked glorious on the talented Philadelphia company at the Academy of Music. We are used to hearing Messiah at Christmastime, but Handel wrote it for Easter, so Pennsylvania Ballet artistic director Roy Kaiser appropriately scheduled this ballet version (there are several others)

When Robert Weiss first heard Handel's "Messiah," at age 10, he had to hold himself back from dancing down the aisle. Many steps later, in 1998, Weiss finally choreographed the familiar Easter piece for his own company, the Carolina Ballet. And it's finally making its local debut, thanks to the Pennsylvania Ballet. "Handel captured the joy of man's spirit," explained Weiss, "the idea that we can transcend ourselves and be more spiritual. Some parts made me see the characters fly through the air, and even the reflective, melancholy parts make you want to move.

Handel's Messiah is a choral masterpiece often heard around the winter holidays, though not many choirs attempt the complete version of this venerable, but long, work. This weekend, the Chester County Choral Society will perform Part 1 of The Messiah, plus the stirring "Hallelujah" chorus from Part 2 as well as some Christmas carols, at the United Methodist Church in West Chester and Ardmore Presbyterian Church in Ardmore. The group will be accompanied by a chamber ensemble, including a string quartet, along with four guest soloists.

Let's face it, a chill in the air and turkey in the oven usually means it's time to trot out those old holiday warhorses. That means loads of Santas, tons of elves and a heaping helping of Ebenezer Scrooge. Don't forget the tunes - the familiar carols, the saintly chorales and the majestic "Messiahs. " And let's not march anywhere without our Nutcrackers. There's a reason these seasonal chestnuts get roasted every year: They work! The kiddies love them. Families bond around them.

Ashley Oswald scored in the 54th minute yesterday as the second-ranked Messiah field hockey team defeated top-ranked Ursinus, 3-2, in Grantham, Pa. It was a rematch of the 2006 NCAA Division III national championship game, which Ursinus won. Ursinus (1-1) scored first yesterday as forward Kait Sutherland connected at 18 minutes, 15 seconds on an assist from Jamie Doperak. Messiah (3-0) struck back with a goal at 27:32 when Lauren Tennis scored on a Beth Sandwich pass.

The magic just wasn't there. Eight Christmas trees, three wreaths and Handel's Messiah gave much evidence of the holiday spirit at Sunday's annual Philadelphia Orchestra presentation of the durable masterwork at the Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall. Yet the performance was more a reenactment than a re-creation, a dress rehearsal masquerading as a performance, in which key persons seemed to husband their energy for something bigger to come. So the concert wasn't dead on arrival as much as it was not yet born.