“A stalwart at New York City Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, [he] was celebrated for his acting ability. His voice was modestly scaled, but he used it cannily, always finding ways for voice and gesture to illuminate character.” – Opera News
Blog
In Times Like These, Are Jewish Jokes Still Funny? Let’s Ask The Comics Who Tell Them
“As anti-Semitic rhetoric and hate crimes resurge, is it still funny for us to be our own punching bags? Is it safe? In joking about money, neuroses, and the demasculinized Jewish man, are we subverting stereotypes or playing into them? We spoke with 13 Jewish comedians about telling Jew jokes in the age of Trump and how to turn cultural punch lines into sources of power.” – Vulture
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Cinema Is Not An Oxymoron. It’s A Real Genre
“Haredim – a Hebrew word meaning ‘those who tremble at the word of God’ that encompasses a multiplicity of ultra-Orthodox Jewish sects – tend to isolate themselves from secular society, which they see as a threat to their traditional way of life. They generally appear to shun film and television, so it is a surprise to discover that many have been making films with considerable zeal, viewed by both religious and secular audiences, for some time.” – The Guardian
Baltimore Symphony Nearly Doubled Its Debt In Less Than Two Years
“The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra owed its vendors $2.1 million as of late April … That’s almost an 81% increase over the $1.2 million the orchestra owed to merchants as of Sept. 25, 2017.” – The Baltimore Sun
Some Good News From Nôtre-Dame: Near-Exact Replica Of Clock Destroyed In Fire Found
“With original drawings lost and no digital records, photographs of the historic clock were the only clue experts had about how they might rebuild it. Then French clockmaker Jean-Baptiste Viot stumbled across an almost identical version while completing an inventory last month at Sainte-Trinité church in northern Paris.” – Yahoo! (AFP)
Joyce Pensato, 78, Artist Who Gave Cartoon Characters De Kooning-Like Intensity
Robert Smith: “She subverted both sides of the high-low equation, ridiculing and exaggerating Abstract Expressionist technique while imbuing popular culture characters with raw, uncontrollable feelings that were more real and gripping than the angst of the Abstract Expressionists.” – The New York Times
Auction Of Caravaggio Discovered In Attic Called Off
“Judith and Holofernes, which was found under an old mattress in the attic of a house in the French city of Toulouse, was snapped up by a foreign buyer, the auction house selling it said on Tuesday.” – Yahoo! (AFP)
Anna Burns’s ‘Milkman’ Gets Another Major Award, The Orwell Prize
The novel, which has already won the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, has received the first-ever Orwell Prize for political fiction. The more-established Orwell Prize for political non-fiction writing went to Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing. Both books concern the Troubles in Northern Ireland. – The Guardian
Now Even Britain’s House Of Lords Thinks West End Tickets Are Too Expensive
“Liberal Democrat peer Patrick Boyle started the debate, in which he asked the government what ‘assessment they have made of the operation of the theatre market in London’ and what steps it had taken to ‘ensure theatre is accessible to as wide an audience as possible’. He used his speech to demand greater transparency from the theatre industry about where money from ticket sales went.” – The Stage
Two Houston Ballet Dancers To Lead Estonia’s National Ballet
First soloist Linnar Looris, a native son, has been named artistic director; Jared Matthews, who was a longtime soloist at ABT before coming to Houston as a principal dancer, will be assistant to the artistic director. – Pointe Magazine