In the wake of the acid attack on Sergei Filin, and considering the known hostility in some quarters there to a foreigner walking into a gig as principal, “one has to wonder if Mr. Hallberg … might be better off sticking around instead of returning to Moscow as scheduled in June.” Says Hallberg, “I’ve always had an amazingly positive experience at the Bolshoi and in Moscow. I’ve never felt unsafe.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Florida Orchestra’s Cuba Exchange Hits A Snag
“The Florida Orchestra has run into the first real glitch in its cultural exchange with Cuba. On Friday, the orchestra learned it had to postpone plans to send concertmaster Jeffrey Multer to perform on Feb. 10 with the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba in Havana.” The reason: a snafu in the bureaucratic machinery governing the US’s embargo on Cuba.
Baking Bread With Virginia Woolf
“Where Woolf hesitated to praise her own writing, she wasn’t nearly so shy about her talent for baking. … Bread was her specialty, particularly a traditionally British double-decker creation: the snowmanesque cottage loaf.”
200 Years Of Pride And Prejudice Covers
“It’s a truth universally acknowledged that sometimes it’s OK to judge a book by its cover. This week marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of one of Jane Austen’s most beloved novels … [and] the numerous editions of the original text have also seen a wealth of interpretive covers: from the annotated to the peacock-inspired.”
An Artifact Of Aleppo’s Happier Days
“At The Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., there is moving evidence of an earlier, more peaceful time in that now-beleaguered Syrian hub: photographs of 19th century women in gold-trimmed velvet jackets, flowing pants and, on their heads, finely woven skull caps. One such small and brimless cap, made in 1800, is on display at the museum.”
Can Benjamin Millepied Fit In At The Paris Opera Ballet?
“Millepied may be French, born in Bordeaux, but at 16 he left to study at the School of American Ballet and spent most of his dancing career with New York City Ballet – a company whose style and repertory are predicated on the stripped-down, very American modernism of George Balanchine.”
Retreating Rebels Burn Priceless Timbuktu Archives
“Islamist insurgents retreating from Timbuktu set fire to a library containing thousands of priceless historic manuscripts, according to the Saharan town’s mayor.”
Olivier’s Unproduced Macbeth Screenplay Found
“Laurence Olivier’s screenplays for a 1950s film version of Macbeth that was never made have been found at the British Library. … Prior to this, the manuscripts were thought to have been lost because Olivier recalled all of the distributed copies after the film was shelved during the final stages of production in 1958.”
Steven Soderbergh On His Impending Retirement (He Won’t Be Playing Mah-Jongg)
“It’s a combination of wanting a change personally and of feeling like I’ve hit a wall in my development that I don’t know how to break through. … Just to be clear, I won’t be directing ‘cinema,’ for lack of a better word. But I still plan to direct – theater stuff, and I’d do a TV series if something great were to come along.”
Barnes & Noble Plans To Close One-Third Of Its Stores Over Ten Years
“Barnes & Noble plans to close about 20 retail stores a year over the next ten years – meaning it would have 450 to 500 stores in the next decade, down from 689 stores today.”