The legendary Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo disbanded 42 years ago A new documentary about the company is “a saga of human indomitability and courage. ‘To see people that old who relied on their bodies for their whole careers, finding their bodies betraying them and still carrying on with optimism and exuberance, still working every day, is remarkable. These people are examples of lives well lived’.”
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Of Literacy And Music
The “serious” classical music world seems to be finally acknowledging more popular influences. “In an era of unprecedented domination by market forces it was only a matter of time before the most prestigious musical institutions will take the favorable verdict of the commercial marketplace not as a cause for suspicion, but as an indication of legitimacy. That many composers were disappointed should not be understood as a wholesale rejection of populist sympathies on their part.”
Iowa Writers’ Workshop To Lose Director
“Frank Conroy, the longtime head of the celebrated Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, will step down at the end of the year.”
Tower Of Pisa’s Condition Stable
The Leaning Tower of Pisa isn’t motionless, but its tilt at last has been stabilized. “Reporting on the present conditions of the monument at the 32nd World Geological Conference in Florence, Italy, Turin University’s Michele Jamiolkowski, president of the committee for the protection of the tower, said that the famous tilt has been finally halted.”
More Variety At The Times
Charles Isherwood, the chief theater critic for Variety since 1998, will become The New York Times’ second-string theater critic Sept 8. He replaces Margo Jefferson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Times veteran whose six-month tenure was remarkable for the ire it inspired in the theater community.
How PG-13 Became A Favorite Rating
The PG-13 movie rating is 20 years old. Back in 1984, “with no middle-ground between PG and R, the ratings board of the 1980s frequently wrestled with the right way to classify movies that should and should not be viewed by children. The flaw in the Motion Picture Association of America’s rating system was that it lumped all children — from infants to 17-year-olds — into the same group.” Then along came Steven Spielberg, who “invented the category. And “instead of being solely an extra warning to parents, as it was originally conceived, it has evolved into the preferred rating of studios and filmmakers. PG-13 puts “hot sauce” on a movie in the viewer’s mind.”
Elvis’ Announcer Has Left The Building
“The announcer who popularised the phrase ‘Elvis has left the building’ has died in a crash, on his way home from an Elvis convention in California.”
Where Opera Lovers Meet Flash Mobs
BBC Three is betting that last year’s flash-mob trend is still alive, at least in the ranks of opera lovers, whom it plans to lure to a performance this fall. “Flashmob – The Opera will see opera singers and 65 musicians joined by an impromptu crowd of people who will be alerted to the event by text message.”
Royal Academy: We Are Not In Crisis
“A director at the Royal Academy of Arts has denied the arts institution is in crisis over the discovery of an unauthorised £80,000 bank account set up by Professor Brendan Neiland, the keeper of the Royal Academy Schools who resigned three weeks ago.”
When The Storm Rages, Let The Stealing Begin
A sculpture based on Michelangelo’s “Pieta” was the target of the thieves, but it was the 100-mile-per-hour winds that triggered the alarm system. “Looters stole a Vatican-commissioned bronze bust of the Virgin Mary from a gallery in Florida during the height of Hurricane Charley.”