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Rosa Bouglione, 107, Paris’s Queen Of The Circus

“Ms. Bouglione, known as Madame Rosa, was one of the last links to an era in which clowns, acrobats, lion tamers, trapeze artists, jugglers and other circus performers were a source of international renown and national pride … Their audiences regularly numbered into the thousands and included entertainers such as Marlene Dietrich, Ingrid Bergman and Josephine Baker, who gave Ms. Bouglione costume suggestions, as well as French politicians including Vincent Auriol and Georges Pompidou.”

What Experiencing ‘The Mile Long Opera’ Is Really Like

Josephine Livingston: “The effect is extraordinary. It’s polyphony, but you, the listener, control what you hear. Curious about how the music melds with the music further down the park? Just keep walking. Captivated by a particular passage? Stay where you are. Dynamics in sound become dimensions in space. You’re so close to the singers that it’s awkward. Look them in the eye or look at your feet: It’s your choice. … In The Mile Long Opera, there are as many operas as there are listeners, because it changes according to your position in space and your frame of mind. It exists to the extent that one is tuning in.”

Is This The World’s Most Controversial Stage Director?

For his current production — a present-day take on the van Eycks’ Ghent Altarpiece — Milo Rau, artistic director of NTGent in Belgium, placed a classified ad looking for jihadists. He got no takers, but he did get hate mail and an international media furor. Once the piece got onstage, though, the praise was warm and widespread — the usual pattern with Rau’s work. “I’ve had scandals before a premiere,” he says, “but never afterward.”

Oligarch/Art Collector Sues Sotheby’s For $380 Million For Assisting In ‘Largest Art Fraud In History’

Billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev has spent years filing lawsuits around the world against dealer Yves Bouvier, whom Rybolovlev accuses of charging outrageous markups on dozens of artworks. (Among those works is Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, which Rybolovlev bought via Bouvier in 2013 and on which he made more than $320 million in profit when he auctioned it off last year.) Bouvier is not named in this particular legal complaint, which accuses Sotheby’s of knowing about the markups Bouvier was charging in the sales the auction house assisted in. (Rybolovlev, by the way, is the oligarch who purchased a Palm Beach mansion sight-unseen from Donald Trump for $95 million, by far the highest price ever paid for a home in the Florida resort town.)

Wolf Hall — The Real One — Located By Archaeologists

The novel Wolf Hall, the first volume of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell/Henry VIII trilogy, took its name from the country estate of Jane Seymour’s family. “Now original features of the 16th-century property have been uncovered by a team of archaeologists and historians, including a network of brick-built sewers and some of the foundations of two towers.” The remains were found on the grounds of (the much later) Wolf Hall Estate in Wiltshire, which still belongs to Seymour descendants.

‘West Side Story’ Production At Kent State Canceled After Students Criticize Casting Of Non-Latinxs

The criticism was led by theater major Bridgett Martinez, who had auditioned for Maria but was cast as understudy for the role. “If they didn’t have this diverse cast in mind, and they didn’t think that we as the Latino students could fulfill these lead roles, then why would they continue on with the show in the first place?” So they didn’t. Once Fox News and similar outlets picked up the story, discussion of the situation spread well beyond the university.

More Ugly Details Emerge In Case Of Fired New York City Ballet Principals

“There was also concern — even among some women — that two of the men might have been unfairly treated. … But as more details of the texting allegations emerged in a lawsuit, a number of women in the company made it clear to management that they would not feel comfortable dancing with those men again.” Among the details: what exactly Amar Ramasar texted that got him in hot water, more trouble caused (and disciplinary action received) by Chase Finlay, and a vicious anonymous note left at the stage door that said “stop believing the word of jilted whores” (and that’s just what was printable).

After Two-Year Restoration, Bruegel’s ‘Triumph Of Death’ Is Back On View At The Prado

“With the aid of copies created by the painter’s two sons and the use of infrared reflectography, it was possible to eliminate the areas of repainting and reintegrate lost details. The removal of varnish applied during previous interventions has restored the original colours, recovering the characteristic bright tones of the blues and reds and the depth of the landscape.”

National Theatre In London Is Really **Royal** National Theatre, But They’d Rather You Forget About That

Why? Because “Royal” might make them seem elitist. Said (R)NT artistic director Rufus Norris, “This country is still very class divided and anything that adds to that perception, that this place is not open to everybody, could be a downfall. I fear that for some people that [the ‘Royal’ prefix] adds to that perception.”

Kuwait Is On A Book-Banning Binge (They’ve Even Banned ‘The Little Mermaid’)

“In August, the government acknowledged that it had banned 4,390 books since 2014, hundreds of them this year, including many works of literature that had once been considered untouchable, setting off street demonstrations and online protests.” Among the Western titles on the censors’ list are One Hundred Years of Solitude, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and 1984 (in one Arabic translation but not another). As for poor little mermaid Ariel? As one activist says, “There are no hijab-wearing mermaids. The powers that be thought her dress was promiscuous. It’s humiliating.”