“Corrugated tin roofs, ramshackle cinder-block huts, labyrinthine streets caked with garbage and rubble, the possibility of random violence at any turn. And this section of the Sarría barrio is not even bad for Caracas. … So just across the street from such blighted scenes young children with violins and French horns and trumpets filled the spaces of an elementary school on Tuesday.”
Month: February 2012
Met Opera’s Longest-Serving Singer, Charles Anthony, Dead At 82
“The number seems almost impossible, but Mr. Anthony” – a comprimario tenor – “sang with the Met in 2,928 performances. He played 111 roles in 69 operas” over 57 seasons; his final performance, as the old Emperor in Turandot, was in January of 2010.
Love Letters Of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning Now Online
“Wellesley College and Baylor University collaborated on the project, which [launched on Feb. 14] with more than 1,400 letters by the poets available online. Of those, 573 represent the complete set of love letters, and at least 1,500 additional pieces of correspondence to other people the couple knew are to be up by summer.”
An Art Critic Opines On Leonardo Live Cinema Event
Roberta Smith: “[It’s] a strangely hectic, occasionally informative and sometimes even insightful high-definition tour of the [UK] National Gallery exhibition, ‘Leonardo da Vinci: Painter in the Court of Milan.’ … Thankful as I am to have an inkling of what the Leonardo show was like, I can’t say that it is entirely a promising debut.”
Was It Evolutionary Biology That Made Men Dominate Women? No, It Was Agriculture
“In hunter-gatherer societies, [the] strength differential doesn’t allow men to fully dominate women, because they depend on the food that women gather. But … [s]trength gives men an advantage over women once heavy ploughs and large animals become central aspects of food production. With this, men become the sole providers, and women start to depend on men economically. The economic dependency allows men to mistreat women.”
Is This The Ken Burns Of Dance?
“Bob Hercules didn’t set out to become the Ken Burns of the American dance world. But for the last three years, the Chicago-based documentary film writer and director has turned his focus on two of the country’s high-profile dance ensembles: the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and the Joffrey Ballet.”
Cash Hemorrhage At Top Venue In Ireland’s Second City
“Operating losses at the Cork Opera House almost trebled in 2010/11 to more than €825,000 (£692,000) following a drop of more than a fifth in revenues … Production volume and audience numbers both fell by nearly a quarter (24%) in the year to the end of March 2011.”
The Very First Recordings Of The Human Voice Revealed
“It must have been excruciating for the National Museum of American History’s archivists to have the earliest known recordings of the human voice but not to be able to listen to them. The records, made in the Volta Lab of Alexander Graham Bell in the early 1880s, were too fragile to play. But the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory figured out how to scan them optically and retrieve the sound.”
It’s Official: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Is UK’s Oldest Orchestra
“The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (RLPO) was not misleading in its claim to be the ‘oldest surviving professional symphony orchestra’, it has been ruled.” Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority “ruled the orchestra had shown ‘documentary evidence’ to prove the claim.”
Remembering Lucian Freud In His Studio
David Dawson, for 20 years Freud’s assistant, friend and occasional model: “He was sort of nimble and jumping around at the entrance to his flat. Very, very piercing blue eyes and wonderful manners that immediately sort of put you at ease, or put me at ease, anyway, and [he] was very intimate and caring about how I felt.”