Author: Matthew Westphal

‘Dr. Strangelove In Space’: Explaining Stanley Kubrick’s Inexplicable ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’

“Look at the similarities: the Cold War secrecy between the US and Russia, the boardrooms packed with middle-aged men in suits, the supposedly infallible machine which is intent on slaughtering the people who built it. … And look at the convictions which underpin both works: that humans are intrinsically, self-destructively violent, and that anyone who believes himself to be 100% right is probably a dangerous maniac. It may be going too far to call 2001 a cynical political comedy, but if Kubrick hadn’t wanted us to laugh, … he wouldn’t have had a chapter entitled The Dawn of Man, in which man, having dawned, bashes another man’s brains out with a club.”

Kelli O’Hara Talks About Returning To Opera – The Met, No Less – After 20 Years On Broadway

“Well, there are no microphones. … Once I’m out there, I have to depend on the acoustics of the room. I’m not going to give myself a bigger voice overnight; I’m not going to give myself more resonant power overnight. My head’s the size it is. … There’s something about a mic that does show everything – all the inconsistencies, all the vulnerabilities of the voice are heard with a microphone. Without it, you’re not. You can clear your throat; you can do things that aren’t actually heard out in the house.”

Dallas Opera Brings Back Former Staffer As New CEO

“With an impressive resume that includes training as a singer and experience as a stage manager and production director, [Ian Derrer] previously worked with Dallas Opera, between 2014 and 2016, as artistic administrator. Since then, he has been general director of Kentucky Opera. … The company moved quickly to fill the position, vacated in January by Keith Cerny, its head for the previous 7½ years.”

Could ‘Jesus Christ Superstar Live’ Rehabilitate Andrew Lloyd Webber?

“For years, the Lloyd Webber canon has been a bit of a cultural punching bag. It’s not hard to see why: His two most popular musicals are, respectively, a nearly plotless anthology sung by performers in spandex and fur and a faux opera about a disfigured stalker in pop culture’s most iconic mask … [Cats and The Phantom of the Opera] have allowed him to become a byword for over-the-top mediocrity that people can snub to feel cultured. Jesus Christ Superstar Live, however, reminded audiences of a different side to Lloyd Webber’s canon.”

These Teen Vandals Were Sentenced To Read Books. Here’s What They Learned

After the five teenagers spray-painted swastikas and graffiti on a 19th-century schoolhouse for black children, a judge ordered them to read books from a list that included (among others) Elie Wiesel’s Night, 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle, Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Did the sentence have the hoped-for effect?

Drue Heinz, Cultural Philanthropist And Publisher Of The Paris Review, Dead At 103

“Mrs. Heinz, the British-born widow of Henry J. ‘Jack’ Heinz II, was a quiet but influential force in the literary and cultural life of the United States and Britain for decades. She endowed literary awards in both countries, supported quarterly journals and a publishing house, and bankrolled a major expansion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She and her husband devoted much of their philanthropy to Pittsburgh, the home base of the Heinz family’s enterprises, and were instrumental in the development of the city’s downtown cultural district in the 1970s.”

Berkshire Museum’s Sale Of Art Approved By Mass. Supreme Court

“Under the terms of the deal, the museum can sell all 40 works – but with one major caveat. Once the proceeds from the sale reach $55 million, it cannot sell any more art. Furthermore, Norman Rockwell’s celebrated Shuffleton’s Barbershop – perhaps the best-known work the Berkshire sought to sell – will be sold to an as-yet-unidentified nonprofit American museum.”