Cozy Chicks (Free subscription) | yesterday
That lovely lady on the postcard above is Lillie Langtry, the "Jersey Lily" of Late 19th Century fame. Later in this post I'll explain why I'm posting her photo. You'll notice the loveley Lillie has her own Victorian Bar & Cafe now. the next time you're in Manhattan, check it out. Trust me, you'll be glad you did. (More below). So----as you probably guessed, I'm back in Manhattan doing...
Siris (Free subscription) | 22/11/2009
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...
Entertainment and Showbiz! (Free subscription) | 21/11/2009
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...
Only The Cinema (Free subscription) | 13/11/2009
Claude Chabrol has always been especially interested in the dynamics of class power, examining the nature of class with a dry, caustic wit. In La cérémonie , this examination plays out in a remote small town where the isolated lower-class maid Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire) is hired by the Lelievre family. They're a typical bourgeois family, aloof and condescending. The father, Georges (Jean-Pierre...
Randy McDonald's Livejournal (Free subscription) | 12/11/2009
This Spiegel International interview, "We Like Lists Because We Don't Want to Die" , with Umberto Eco, manages to introduce the idea of the humble list as a basic organizing structure of civilization. Which it is. SPIEGEL: Mr. Eco, you are considered one of the world's great scholars, and now you are opening an exhibition at the Louvre, one of the world's most important museums. The subjects...
Philadelphia Inquirer (Free subscription) | 12/11/2009
NEW YORK - Only Lincoln Center Plaza separates triumph from disaster. While operatic conservatives dig in their heels against innovations afoot at the Metropolitan Opera, across the way the tentatively resurrected New York City Opera - whose unofficial mandate is to do things that might make Met-goers boo - opened in a much-improved State Theater last weekend with a sexy, concept-heavy production of...
My Buenos Aires Travel Guide (Free subscription) | 11/11/2009
The Teatro Colon of Buenos Aires has presented its program for the 2010 Season. After three years of restoration works, the companies will return to the theater's concert hall, that will be inaugurated on May 25th, 2010, with a Reopening Gala in celebration of the May Revolution Bicentenary. The 2010 Season will feature great figures as Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta Paloma Herrera, and Yo-Yo Ma. The...
The New York Observer (Free subscription) | 11/11/2009
When the lights went up Sunday afternoon on a shirtless man next to a pantsless man—both American, both young—I knew that City Opera was back. It was the start of the second act of Mozart’s Don Giovanni , and the two men were playing the eponymous antihero and his servant, Leporello. Christopher Alden’s new production of Giovanni was the highlight of a long weekend marking...
Vancouver Opera Blog (Free subscription) | 04/11/2009
Although we won't let ALL the cats out of the bag, we can tell you who will be singing what at the Golden Anniversary Concert November 6. But you must be there to check out our very special guests! (shhhhhhh!) VO Golden Anniversary Concert Program Friday, November 6th, 2009 Orpheum Theatre - 7:00 PM Maestro Jonathan Darlington – Conductor/Host Michael Cavanagh - Director Guest Soloists Vancouver...
Liberal Democrat Voice (Free subscription) | 29/10/2009
Good morning and welcome to October 29th. Today is the anniversary of the first performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the birthday of Boswell, the biographer of Samuel L Jackson, and the anniversary of the death of Sir Walter Raleigh (he was executed – I didn’t know that.) It’s also the fifth anniversary of the signing of [...]
The Untrusted (Free subscription) | 29/10/2009
Three people were killed as a result of the first trial for witchcraft in Paris in 1390. Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded for allegedly plotting against James I in 1618. Mozart's Don Giovanni had its debut in Prague in 1787. Tanganyika and Zanzibar united to form Tanzania in 1964. Born today: Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002), Bob Ross (1942-1995), Denny Laine (1944), Richard Dreyfuss (1947), Dan Castellaneta...
PlaybillArts.com (Free subscription) | 26/10/2009
In anticipation of its forthcoming production of the Mozart classic, New York City Opera will host an Oct. 27 event exploring the legend behind Don Giovanni . The 7 PM presentation will be held at the Museum of Sex in Manhattan.
LUSTY LADY (Free subscription) | 21/10/2009
Very cool event with Esther Perel, guest judge for Best Sex Writing 2010, among many other credits. On October 27, 2009 at 7:00pm , New York City Opera’s own Don Juan (bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch) in its new production of Don Giovanni, director Christopher Alden, and Esther Perel , a leading sexologist, will gather at the Museum of Sex for an intimate, provocative exchange on the Don Juan legend....
The Guardian - The blog Theatre (Free subscription) | 12/10/2009
Critics might have bashed him, but Goold commutes easily between theatre and opera - his imaginative direction brings Puccini's masterpiece alive Rupert Goold has just directed Turandot for the English National Opera, but he has not exactly been thanked for his pains. Lauded for his productions of Macbeth and Enron, he has now been bashed for his presumptuous interference with Puccini. But, without...
DaithaiC (Free subscription) | 07/10/2009
Astronomical Clock I first went to Prague in 1998 and this was the first time I had returned 11 years later in 2009 for the 20th Anniversary of the velvet revolution which cast off Communism. I was nervous about returning for when I first went I was bowled over by the sheer magnificence of Prague but also by the welcome, after so many years cut off they really made visitors welcome and they were a...
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