Siris (Free subscription) | 6 hours ago
Umberto Eco discusses our interest in lists : The list is the origin of culture. It's part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order -- not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in...
I'll think of something later (Free subscription) | 9 hours ago
They told me Rupert Goold's new ENO Turandot was going to be set in a Chinese restaurant; I laughed. I saw the trailer; it looked as if it might work. I saw the show last night; I haven't experienced a more brilliant piece of totally reinvented music theatre since Richard Jones's production of Wozzeck . Sets by Miriam Buether, costumes by Katrina Lindsay, video art and design from Lorna Heavey and...
DownWithTyranny! (Free subscription) | 14 hours ago
Tenor Edmundas Seilius sings the Prologue to Britten's ghost opera The Turn of the Screw (with pianist Joyce Fieldsend) in what we're told is the dress rehearsal at the Opéra National du Rhin. I don't suppose any director's going to let the Narrator just stand in front of the curtain and tell what he has to tell about this "curious story," but this performance at least starts surprisingly...
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 19 hours ago
Robert Yates returns to the streets of Liverpool, where he grew up, to report on a story of deprivation and hope I n a parade of shops on County Road in Walton, north Liverpool, a couple of signs compete for attention. "Slip! Trip!" offers the first, in the window of Walton Accident Claims – the jaunty exclamation marks explained perhaps by the possibility that there's some money at...
A Boat Against the Current (Free subscription) | 15 hours ago
“ 'Work then without disputing,’ said Martin; ‘it is the only way to render life supportable.’ " "The little society, one and all, entered into this laudable design and set themselves to exert their different talents. The little piece of ground yielded them a plentiful crop. Cunegund indeed was very ugly, but she became an excellent hand at pastrywork: Pacquette embroidered;...
Spectator - The Magazine (Free subscription) | yesterday
Bartok’s only opera, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, shouldn’t be a difficult work to stage, to sing and to play, yet most of my worthwhile experiences of it have been listening to recordings — where it has done notably well. Though the plotline is as simple as can be, and the music matches it in urgency and directness, or rather because of these facts, it is a piece that invites...
I'll think of something later (Free subscription) | yesterday
Very sad to learn that another of our greatest singing actresses, Elisabeth Soderstrom, has followed Behrens to the grave. She had more of an innings than I realised, reaching the relatively grand age of 82, and yet it seems like only yesterday I caught some of her later performances. I came to Strauss's marital semi-comedy Intermezzo through hearing her termagent Christine Storch (aka Pauline Strauss)...
Entertainment and Showbiz! (Free subscription) | yesterday
Actress Eva Mendes has revealed that she turns on her sexuality when she needs to secure film roles. Mendes, 35, admits she’s not afraid to use her sex-symbol status to get what she wants. “I don’t allow myself to be typecast, but when I have to turn up the heat and turn up the sexuality and I [...] Related posts: Eva Mendes : Eva Mendes says Kate Winslet gets all her dream roles...
The Lichfield Blog (Free subscription) | yesterday
ichfield Sinfonia have organised a varied programme for their Autumn concert at the city’s Guildhall. Their November 29 performance will see music including Weber Oberon Overture and Tchaikovsky Symphony 5 . The concert will feature Cannock-born guest soloist Andrew Smith who is currently studying at Birmingham Conservatoire playing Stamitz Flute Concerto in G op 29. The performance starts [...]...
Hair Balls (Free subscription) | yesterday
Get ready for the closing curtain of Rice University's production of Threepenny Opera. The grand story by Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill is being touted as "a musical of murder, mayhem, and matrim...
Philadelphia Inquirer (Free subscription) | yesterday
The new Curtis Opera Theatre production of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress is a test of sorts. How much are you willing to endure for love of this opera? What aspects mean the most to you? Music? Words? Characters?
DownWithTyranny! (Free subscription) | yesterday
Dawn on the North Sea coast of Suffolk at Aldeburgh, where Britten lived nearly the last three decades of his life by Ken Back when we took our original Sneak peek into the sound world of Benjamin Britten , when I was dependent on YouTube scavengings for musical examples, I was relieved to have Leonard Bernstein's rather tired DG recording of the mesmerizing "Dawn" interlude from Peter Grimes...
The Guardian (Free subscription) | yesterday
Swedish soprano whose perceptive singing and vivid acting made her a great heroine in operas by Tchaikovsky, Richard Strauss and Janacek One of the most perceptive and admired sopranos of the postwar era, Elisabeth Söderström, who has died aged 82, had a lengthy career that carried on into the 1990s, when she was well into her 60s. In everything she attempted, her vibrantly beautiful singing...
SFist (Free subscription) | 20/11/2009
In looking for good autumnal cocktails to feature, we came across this delicious ginger concoction from DOSA on Fillmore , which has been doing great stuff with pairing cocktails to their food. The Ginger Ante cocktail, created by bartender Usman Chaudhary, would be perfect as an opener for Thanksgiving dinner, particularly with some roasted pumpkin seeds to nibble on, or this stuffed snow pea appetizer...
Green Integer Blog (Free subscription) | 20/11/2009
Antonio Ghislanzoni (libretto), based on a French scenario by Auguste Mariette, Giuseppe Verdi (composer) Aida / the production I saw was the Metropolitan Opera live HD, in encore on Thursday, November 12, 2009 One of the aspects of Aida that interviewer, singer Renée Fleming suggested several times in the intermissions of Verdi's great opera was that, despite the huge size of the cast, except...
Videos