The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, once a big Broadway-style extravaganza, is coming to London in an admired small-scale production from the Watermill Theatre in West Berkshire, where it completely sold out.
Author: Matthew Westphal
Exiled Afghan Writer Takes Prix Goncourt
Writing in French for the first time, former refugee Atiq Rahimi won France’s top literary prize for Syngue Sabour (Persian for “Stone of Patience”), about a woman caring for her husband, who has been paralyzed by a war wound, and telling him stories about her life that he had never heard.
Guarneri Quartet Violinist Stricken With Cancer
“The Guarneri String Quartet has postponed its Portland concerts on Feb. 14 and 15. John Dalley, the group’s second violinist, has cancer and needs to undergo treatment , according to Linda Magee of Chamber Music Northwest.”
It’s Not Just Newspaper Journalists In Trouble Anymore
“Sorry, news anchors – you might soon have to share your job with avatars. A virtual news technology is turning heads by quickly creating news stories and commentary, no humans required… News At Seven (newsatseven.com) is an automated system combining 3-D avatars, images, video, opinion and generated speech. The website collects news stories from the Web, edits them automatically and formats the content for artificial anchors.”
Sydney Dance Company Finally Gets Artistic Director
London-based choreographer Rafael Bonachela has just begun his tenure leading the popular and dynamic troupe. The SDC had been somewhat rudderless since longtime directors Graeme Murphy and Janet Vernon quit in 2006 over persistent money trouble; their planned successor, Tanja Liedtke, was killed in an accident shortly before she assumed the post.
This Is Older Than Any “Knock-Knock” Joke
“Monty Python’s famous Dead Parrot sketch is actually a lot older than thought – 1,600 years older. An ancestor of the comedy sketch has been found in a joke book dating back to Greece in the 4th Century.”
Met Drops Next Season’s Ghosts Of Versailles
“Cutting costs in the wake of the economic downturn, the Met[ropolitan Opera] is dropping next season’s highly anticipated revival of John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles that was to feature the company debut of Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth. Angela Gheorghiu and Thomas Hampson, who also were to appear, instead will sing in a less-costly revival of Verdi’s La Traviata, Met general manager Peter Gelb said Thursday.”
Does Religion Make You Nice And Atheism Make You Mean?
In the U.S., “atheists are less charitable than their God-fearing counterparts: They donate less blood, for example, and are less likely to offer change to homeless people on the street.” Yet “the Danes and the Swedes [are] probably the most godless people on Earth. They don’t go to church or pray in the privacy of their own homes; they don’t believe in God or heaven or hell. But, by any reasonable standard, they’re nice to one another. They have a famously expansive welfare and health care service. They have a strong commitment to social equality.”
Pierre Boulez Curates Art Exhibition At Louvre
“[T]he art show titled ‘Work:Fragment’ gathers 70 works by artists such as Ingres, Cézanne, Degas, Delacroix, Kandinsky, Klee, Giacometti and Picasso alongside scores from Wagner, Bartók and Varèse and works by writers from the 19th and 20th centuries.” The program, the first at the Louvre ever to be curated by a musician, also includes 11 live and six filmed concerts.
Dancing About Architecture, Sort Of
“But choreographer Tere O’Connor, 50, who also calls himself ‘an advanced architectural hobbyist,’ sees plenty of connections between the two [disciplines].” His piece Rammed Earth, named after an ancient building technique, makes “conceptual links between solid and moving architecture.”