“Imagine an N.F.L. game in which the starting quarterback is replaced a day before kickoff, and his substitute, flown in from, say, the Canadian Football League, has to be fitted for a uniform, learn the plays and meet his backfield for the first time. Happens all the time at the Metropolitan Opera.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
77-Year-Old Tenor To Be World’s Oldest Otello
Jon Andrew, once a regular at houses like Covent Garden, La Scala and Munich, is coming out of retirement to sing the punishing Verdi role in England this June. (He last sang Otello in 1979.) Whatever the state of his cords, he’s physically strong enough to do it: “Andrew looks at gym equipment as Pavarotti once looked at dinner.”
Proletarian Revolution Among The Insects
“Some ant species raid colonies of smaller species, killing the queen, scaring away worker ants and stealing larvae. Kidnapped larvae grow up as slaves … [Researchers] saw enslaved worker ants destroy two-thirds of newly hatched queens and female workers of their captors.”
ABT Promotes Part To Principal
American Ballet Theatre has promoted Veronika Part, who has been a soloist with the company since 2002, to principal dancer, effective May 18. The St. Petersburg native studied at the Vaganova Ballet Academy and became a soloist at the Kirov in 1998.
Tulsa Ballet Names New Boss
“Scott Black, who has served as executive director of the OK Mozart International Festival for three years, will become managing director of Tulsa Ballet” in July.
Orange County PAC Slashes Salaries
“The Orange County Performing Arts Center is reducing staff salaries and benefits by 14 percent across the board, with senior staff taking a 16 percent reduction. Three full-time employees have also been laid off.” To stave off further cuts, the OCPAC board has launched a $1 million challenge grant.
YouTube’s Latest Viral Hit: A Train Station Full Of Dancing Belgians
A video of 200 people doing a choreographed dance routine to “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music in Antwerp’s (very handsome) Central Station has racked up almost a million hits and is reducing bloggers to burbling (“How could you not smile for hours? I’m smiling now just typing this!”). It hardly seems to matter that it’s all a publicity stunt for a Flemish version of the CBC reality show How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?.
Opera Simulcasting Goes 3-D
France will witness the world’s first 3-D opera simulcast on June 2: a performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni transmitted live from the Opéra de Rennes to an auditorium in Rennes’s city hall and to one or more cinemas in Paris. Meanwhile, there will be 2-D simulcasts in Rennes (indoors in hi-def as well as outdoors) and Brest as well as on the web sites ville-rennes.fr and francemusique.com.
Bryn Terfel Lives Everyone’s Classic Nightmare
You know, the one where you’re about to do something important in front of people and you realize that you’re wearing no clothes. It wasn’t quite that bad for the Welsh baritone, who had set out from his hotel for a concert in Seoul wearing a pair of shorts, only to arrive at the hall and discover that he had forgotten to pack his concert slacks.
The Glory Of Book Covers, Online
“Book Cover Archive [bookcoverarchive.com] is an elegant and simple site whose stated goal is ‘for the appreciation and categoriazation of excellence in book cover design’.”