Blog

Baritone Sanford Sylvan Dies Suddenly At 65

Admired as much for his unusual communicative gifts (especially in American English) as for his warm and gentle voice, Sylvan began his career in Boston’s chamber and early music scenes and first became known for his performances in Peter Sellars’s 1980s Mozart stagings. He was a favorite of John Adams, who wrote the song cycle The Wound-Dresser for him, and two of his most famous opera roles were as Chou En-Lai in Nixon in China and the title role in The Death of Klinghoffer. — NPR

This Is *Not* The Vehicle You’d Expect For Garth Drabinsky’s Comeback

With his company, Livent, Drabinsky was one of Broadway’s powerhouse producers in the 1990s (Ragtime, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Show Boat, Fosse, Parade). Then he got busted for financial fraud and did time in a Canadian prison. Now he’s back — at, of all places, Berkeley Rep, with Paradise Square, a sort-of Stephen Foster jukebox musical about Irish- and African-Americans in Civil War-era Manhattan. — The New York Times

Australia’s Richest Book Prize Goes To Refugee Interned In Offshore Camp

Kurdish-Iranian writer Behrouz Boochani composed his first book, No Friend But the Mountains, one text message at a time from inside the Manus Island detention center in Papua New Guinea, one of the offshore centers where Australia places refugees who try to reach the country by sea. Now that book has won the A$100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature. — The Guardian

Dušan Makavejev, Director Of ‘WR: Mysteries Of The Organism’ And ‘Montenegro’, Dead At 86

“His films, known for scenes of nudity and explicit sex, often centered on the sexual liberation of a female character. … Makavejev’s work — part of a ‘Black Wave’ of filmmaking in his country — also was raucously subversive, anti-bureaucratic and frequently banned by authorities. He audaciously attacked dogmas, whether they came from the East or the West. Not surprisingly, he was treated as royalty at film festivals.” — The Hollywood Reporter

The Powerful Role Of Gossip In Ancient Greece

While Aristotle suggests that gossiping was frequently a trivial, enjoyable pastime, he also makes clear that gossiping could have malicious intent when spoken by someone who has been wronged. This evaluation of words as weapons in the hands of the wronged is particularly pertinent when thinking about how the Athenians made use of gossip in the law courts in Athens, because Ancient court cases were based heavily on character evaluation of those involved in the case rather than on hard evidence. – Aeon

How Instagram Is Changing Book Covers

At a time when half of all book purchases in the U.S. are made on Amazon — and many of those on mobile — the first job of a book cover, after gesturing at the content inside, is to look great in miniature. That means that where fine details once thrived, splashyprints have taken over, grounding text that’s sturdy enough to be deciphered on screens ranging from medium to miniscule. – New York Magazine