“Prominent Belgian Jews have harshly criticized the Flanders Opera in Antwerp for staging what they regard as an anti-Israeli, political event disguised as a premiere.” The production of Saint-Saëns’s Samson and Delilah, directed by two Israelis, puts the Philistines in Western garb while dressing Samson and the Israelites as Arabs.
Author: Matthew Westphal
No, Our Current University System Is Not Like Detroit
“Despite an academic job market that has been anemic at best and disastrous at worst for more than 35 years, top Ph.D. programs still receive far more qualified applicants than they can hope to admit, includ[ing] a rising proportion from overseas. America’s position in basic research, as measured in such things as Nobel Prizes, seems unchallenged. European academics generally regard the American academic system with untrammeled envy … [T]his is the sort of ‘obsolescence’ that Chrysler and The New York Times can only dream of.”
Angel Corella Tries To Get Classical Ballet On Its Legs In Spain
One year ago, the former ABT star launched a full-scale professional troupe with more than 40 dancers based in Segovia. “[B]ut the company has to contend with a country where ballet hasn’t ever found its footing. […] It wouldn’t be so strange for Spain to lack a national classical company except for the fact that it is known for exporting high-caliber ballet dancers.”
Vancouver Cultural Olympiad Announces Programming
Among the more than 600 cultural events accompanying the 2010 Winter Olympics are new theatre works by Laurie Anderson and Robert Lepage, dance premieres by choreographers Marie Chouinard and Crystal Pite, Alberta Ballet’s dance to Joni Mitchell songs, Mahler’s mammoth 8th Symphony, a new staging of Nixon in China, and a stage work by Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland.
Rochester, Minn., Orchestra Fires Executive Director
“Tony Sertich, executive director of the Rochester Symphony Orchestra & Chorale, was dismissed Monday” – an uncommon occurrence in a field where top administrators who lose the confidence of their boards of directors are usually permitted to resign.
Pete Seeger, ‘America’s Most Celebrated Anti-Celebrity’
“[H]e has always resisted stardom, preferring to be a conduit, a curator, an organizer, and a collaborator. It was almost a blessing, then, that on the brink of serious commercial success, Seeger was forced to drop off the map: He was accused of being a Communist, then blackballed after his politely defiant testimony in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee.”
Why Chinese People Take English Names
Chinese-American Huan Hsu: “At my workplace [in Shanghai], which is 90% mainland Chinese, just about everyone I interacted with had an English name, usually selected or received in school. The names ran the gamut, from the standard (Jackie, Ivy) to the unusual (Sniper, King Kong), but what really struck me was how commonly people used them when addressing one another, even when the rest of the conversation was in Chinese.”
Ballet Arkansas Returns To Pro Status
“It has been about a dozen years since Ballet Arkansas fielded a professional company. … Now [the company] says it’s back on its feet, creating a new six-member professional company that will form the core of the company’s performing, teaching and community outreach activities.”
What Makes John Cassavetes’s Films Great
“But while their forced antics and sudden bursts of cruelty are often cringe-worthy, these people are never the object of satire or ridicule. Cassavetes films his characters with such deep compassion that even the crudest sally comes off as a gesture of love, a misguided bid for recognition. And when that recognition comes, in brief flashes … there’s a shock of emotional truth we rarely get to experience in life, let alone at the movies.”
Ying Quartet Loses A Ying
The all-sibling foursome is losing its first violinist, Timothy Ying, who announced at a concert last weekend that this was his last performance with the group. He says, “It’s all about providing the kind of family life that I want for my kids. I’ve been on the road about half of the time for the past 15 years.” He has three children under the age of 5.