The sweet-voiced blond hunkentenor was diagnosed last December, the morning after he performed in the opening night of Die Meistersinger at Covent Garden. “It was a shock, especially with the cancer being so close to my vocal cords,” he said. “The surgery has been a great success.”
Month: April 2012
North Korean Orchestra’s US Tour On Hold
“A planned visit to the United States by North Korea’s National Symphony Orchestra next month has been postponed following Pyongyang’s [failed] launch of a long-range rocket.”
The Difficult Lillian Hellman
“Once celebrated for her taut writing and devotion to social justice, her image since her death in 1984, aged 79, has curdled into something villainous. Her plays are still performed … but they are often dismissed as moralising melodramas. Her name now tends to invite vitriol about her being a Stalinist and a liar.”
E-Books Are Not Killing Reading (We’ve Said It Before, We’ll Say It Again)
“There are two big questions about the future of books and technology. One is: are people reading more and, by implication, buying more books? The answer is yes. … [O]verall revenues, and number of books sold in all formats, were up sizably in three years since 2008. Without e-books, the numbers would have been flat, or declined.”
It’s Time To Stop Worrying About Theatre Audiences Texting
Lyn Gardner: “[T]heatre-going doesn’t just begin with buying a ticket and end when the curtain falls. People clearly do want a more interactive theatre experience that allows them to engage with others who have seen what they’ve seen, and they want to share and discuss over many platforms.”
Will This Be Off-Broadway’s Next Our Town?
The Barrow Street Theatre in New York’s West Village is where a Chicago production of Thornton Wilder’s play made headlines, ran for months, and turbo-charged director David Cromer’s career. Some Barrow Street producers were recently back in Chicago to check out playwright Ike Holter’s Hit the Wall, a new play about the Stonewall riots (which happened just steps from the Barrow Street).
Can Sluts Across America Reclaim That Dirty Word?
“Enlightened men and ladies have spilled a lot of ink trying to kill off the derogatory epithet. But the newborn Sluts Across America project [www.slutsacrossamerica.org] is taking a different tack: Instead of fighting a term that shows few signs of going anywhere – and one that felicitously gives Rush Limbaugh and rap artists something in common – they’re reclaiming it.”
Margaret Atwood: ”Money Is Imaginary. Debts Are Real.’
“It’s real because it’s a visceral, emotional thing and we all know that. We all know that when the engagement breaks up, you give back the ring. People who keep the ring are really [makes a face of great disgust]. These are emotional balances. They’re in us long before money enters the picture. They’re in us as kids, little kids. ‘It’s not fair,’ kicks in probably between 3 and 4, big time.”
A New Yorker Editor Fesses Up About The Diaeresis
“The fact is that, absent the two dots, most people would not trip over the ‘coop’ in ‘cooperate’ or the ‘reel’ in ‘reelect’ (though they might pronounce the ‘zoo’ in ‘zoological,’ a potential application of the diaeresis that we get no credit for resisting). And yet we use the diaeresis for the same reason that we use the hyphen: to keep the cow out of co-workers.”
Russian Oligarch Says Painting He Bought Is ‘Fake’, Demands Refund From Christie’s
“Viktor Vekselberg, 56, an oil tycoon and art collector, is arguing that the painting, Odalisque, bought [for £1.7 million] through his Aurora Fine Arts fund in 2005, could not possibly be by the prominent Russian artist Boris Kustodiev as it was signed several years after his death.”