“One does look for a Hamlet that is lean and pensive or, failing that, an action hero like Mel Gibson or Keanu Reeves, who both played the role in the 1990s. … But what if our mental image of Hamlet is wrong? What if the grieving, vengeful prince is actually fat? Just because you’ve never considered the possibility doesn’t mean that Shakespeare scholars haven’t argued about it.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Music Director? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Music Director, Says Vienna State Opera
Says the company’s director, Dominique Meyer: “No, during my second term there will be no music director” to succeed Franz Welser-Möst. (in German; Google-translated version here)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 09.28.15
Sudden Departure: Max Anderson Precipitously Leaves Dallas Museum Directorship
This is not how amicable resignations usually happen: The Dallas Museum of Art today announced that its director of less than four years, Maxwell Anderson, “has stepped down as director of the DMA … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-09-28
A Good Show Spoiled
With the weather in New York still fine – and warmish – on Saturday, I ventured up to the New York Botanical Garden for FRIDA: Art, Garden, Life, one of the Garden’s hybrid exhibitions that combines plants and paintings … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-09-27
Not the fast car
How do you dance a midlife crisis? Hofesh Shechter is one of Britain’s most popular choreographers – someone who tugs non-dance fans into the theatre, drawn by the meaty savour of whomping percussion and … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2015-09-28
Bud Powell At 91
Here it is nearly the close of Bud Powell’s birthday and I’ve had my nose too close to the grindstone to take note of it. He would have been 91 today. If I had to … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-09-27
Shostakovich and S & M in the Provinces: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
Stalin walked out of a performance of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, saying the music was a muddle. This shows only that he … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2015-09-28
Unpacking your piano
My colleagues and I taught a seminar on writing for piano last Friday. Referencing a wide range of thinking going all the way back to Cristofori, we focused mainly on innovations of High Modernism to … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2015-09-28
Darkest Depths of the Soul?
The inconceivable advocacy of a large percentage of Americans for Donald Trump to be the Republican Presidential nominee in 2016 began to make a little more sense upon reading the New York Times critic’s ode to political correctness in his September 25th review of the Metropolitan Opera’s seasonal premiere of Puccini’s Turandot. … read more
AJBlog: OperaSleuth Published 2015-09-28
Enough seen
Mrs. T and I are in Pittsburgh to see a play. Our last visit here took place four years ago, when we flew out to catch a rare revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s House and Garden, … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-09-28
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Should A Monkey Own Copyright For A Selfie It Took? PETA Says Yes, And Sues On The Monkey’s Behalf
“The suit was filed Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. It seeks a court order allowing PETA to administer all proceeds from the photos for the benefit of the monkey, which it identified as 6-year-old Naruto, and other crested macaques living in a reserve on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.”
Gore Vidal, The Citizen Kane Of Literature
Blake Bailey: “Vidal’s life was a tragedy whose great themes put one in mind of Citizen Kane: the story of an insatiable egoist who had everything and lost it. Standing on his balcony in Ravello, overlooking the gorgeous coast, a friend asked him what more he could possibly want out of life: ‘I want to make 200 million people change their minds,’ Vidal replied.”
Has The Louvre Pulled Out Of The Rijksmuseum’ S €160M Rembrandt Deal?
“The Dutch government has pledged to help the Rijksmuseum acquire a pair of rare, full-length Rembrandt portraits from the French businessman Éric de Rothschild for €160m, a record price for a Western museum. … The news follows speculation that the Rijksmuseum would jointly acquire the works with the Musée du Louvre in Paris.” But mention of the Louvre seems to have disappeared from recent reports.
The Kinshasa Symphony Is Gaining Fans Around The World, But Back In The Congo, They All Still Have Day Jobs
“The largest – and until recently, only – orchestra in Central Africa has played on three continents, to standing ovations, and graced some of the philharmonic world’s most prestigious stages in recent years. But at home, it remains a modest affair. The first trumpeter still spends his days working construction sites. The double bass player is a nurse, and the tubist a pharmacist. One violinist, who is also the repairman tasked with mending instruments warped by the Congolese humidity, runs a small shop across the street, selling eggs and toothpaste.”
When Lupita Nyong’o Was Given Her Choice Of A Play To Star In, This Is The One She Chose
“A few days after arriving at the Yale School of Drama from Kenya in 2009, Lupita Nyong’o found herself understudying in a professional production of Eclipsed, Danai Gurira’s harrowing play about women in the second Liberian civil war.” So when, following her Oscar for 12 Years a Slave, the Public Theater offered her a chance to return to the stage, she had no doubt about the script she wanted.
Ernest Hemingway Was A Total Pack Rat
“He saved even his old passports and used bullfight tickets, leaving behind one of the longest paper trails of any author. So how is it possible that ‘Ernest Hemingway: Between Two Wars,’ which opens on Friday at the Morgan Library & Museum, is the first major museum exhibition devoted to Hemingway and his work? It could be simply that no one thought of it before.”
The ‘Queer Tango’ Movement Comes Into Its Own
Marina Harss: “For many people, including me, the word tango conjures the image of a pantherlike milonguero, hair slicked back, in a breathless embrace with a lithe, rapt partner, skirt slit to her thigh, trembling at his every touch. … But, no surprise, this image has very little to do with the reality of the tango as it is experienced by those who dance it. … Men are dancing with men, women with women; women are leading and men are learning to follow. Often, these roles shift mid-dance.”