“Macbeth starring Kenneth Branagh at Manchester International Festival, Welsh National Opera’s Anna Bolena, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic’s Wagner on Merseyside – these are all shows where a screening in an independent cinema could allow more people to see the homegrown talent and productions on offer. Perhaps even London audiences could get to see the best theatre that isn’t touring to their feted stages.”
Month: January 2013
Sotheby’s Drops Musical Instrument Business
“The move is further evidence of Sotheby’s desire to focus on its core fine art and antiques business, an area that delivered headline-making results for the company in 2012, chief among them the highest price ever paid for a work of art at auction – $119.9m for Munch’s The Scream.”
Founder Of Montreux Jazz Festival In Coma
“Claude Nobs … was injured on Christmas Eve after he ‘fell while practising cross-country skiing’ near his home in the village of Caux in Switzerland, festival organisers said on Monday. He has undergone surgery but remains unconscious.”
Rushdie Vs. Mishra, Round 3
Pankaj Mishra: “Such are the imbalances of geopolitical power that it is hard even to imagine Mo Yan, or any writer in China for that matter, attacking … Salman Rushdie for failing to be sufficiently critical of Barack Obama’s routine executions using drones … Rushdie’s self-presentation as a stern literary ombudsman to errant politicians is not much more persuasive.”
Bette Midler To Return To Broadway After Three Decades
After years of limiting live performances to her trademark giddy extravaganzas at places like Radio City Music Hall and Las Vegas, the Divine Miss M will play the late Hollywood super-agent Sue Mengers in a one-woman show titled I’ll Eat You Last.
Ballet And Bitch-Fights, Simultaneously – On Set At Bunheads
Series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino: “We just shot a scene where the girls are in a spat, and the whole thing takes place during a dance routine. We built a dance with yammer. A yammer dance. It’s tricky as shit. It wasn’t hard enough to do separately, so I just had to throw it together.”
When Counterinsurgency Experts Go See Les Mis
“Most viewers left the showing of Les Misérables discussing Anne Hathaway (good), Russell Crowe (bad), and Sacha Baron Cohen (ugly) – but as a student of political violence, something else caught my eye. I was more interested in the structural integrity of the barricades and the poor substitution of tenors for tactics.”
Learning Life Lessons From Psychopaths
As one correspondent (a lawyer, naturally) told researcher Kevin Dutton, “Psychopathy (if that’s what you want to call it) is like a medicine for modern times. If you take it in moderation, it can prove extremely beneficial. It can alleviate a lot of existential ailments that we would otherwise fall victim to because our fragile psychological immune systems just aren’t up to the job of protecting us.”
Stolen Matisse Recovered In London
“Le Jardin, or The Garden, was taken from the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm during a robbery in the early hours of 11 May, 1987.”
How the Ubiquitous-ization Of Classical Music Will Save It
Against the instinct of purists to denounce the ubiquitous cheapening of classical music in ringtones, overheated movie trailers and hip-hop songs, Elie contends: “The more various our encounters with Bach, the more objective his genius is.”