This may not be the first time someone has said that the Met’s audience is a bunch of babies, but it’ll be the first time that it’s literally true. “The company will present 10 free performances of BambinO, an opera for babies between 6 months old and 18 months old, from April 30 to May 5 in the opera house’s smaller auditorium, List Hall … The 40-minute opera – scored for two singers and two musicians – will be performed for a small audience of babies and caregivers.” (includes video)
Blog
Without Warning, Beloved Brancusi Sculpture In Paris Cemetery Is Boxed Up
“The Cimetière du Montparnasse is at risk of losing one of two of its most distinctive occupants. A famous Constantin Brancusi sculpture of a couple embracing, Le Baiser (The Kiss, 1909), has … been on view just inside the cemetery’s Rue Émile-Richard entrance since the very end of 1910 or early 1911. But, for at least six months now, the sculpture has been covered up and mysteriously concealed from public view.”
Marie-Agnès Gillot, Paris Opera Ballet’s Most Unlikely Étoile, Retires At 42
“Everything was against Marie-Agnes Gillot becoming a ballerina – never mind a great one. She was too tall, broad-shouldered and most of all, she had a double scoliosis, which sometimes gives her a hump when her back is swollen. … The last great French ballerina of her generation, she hid her problem from her teachers after leaving home at nine to go to ballet’s elite school in the French capital.”
Olly Wilson, Composer Who Brought West African Material Into Western Avant-Garde Music, Dead At 80
“Mr. Wilson, a longtime professor at the University of California, Berkeley, grew up listening to jazz and spirituals. He studied African music in Ghana under one of his two Guggenheim Fellowships, opened an electronic music studio at the Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College in Ohio, where he had formerly taught, and wrote academic papers, including a major essay on the art of black music.”
In Mosul, Rebuilding The Centuries-Old Book Culture ISIS Tried To Destroy
In the years they occupied Iraq’s second city, the extremists burned tens of thousands of books and torched the widely admired university’s library. NYRB‘s reporters meet with librarians, law professors, and a literature lover who has opened a library/café.
UK Ruling On Hearing Damages Will Have Big Impact On Orchestras
“It effectively says an orchestral workspace is no different from a factory,” said Mark Pemberton, director of the Association of British Orchestras. “What it says is that musicians will need to be wearing their hearing protection at all times.”
How Brexit Will Damage UK Arts
When it comes to Brexit and the arts, freedom of movement and access to finance are the two most frequently discussed issues. They feature heavily in two reports from Arts Council England last month that provide the best data yet on what the sector is thinking and doing in response to the vote to leave.
Is There A Way To Scientifically Measure Wisdom?
To assess our health, we weigh ourselves, measure our blood pressure, and check our cholesterol. But one scientist is trying to figure out the connection between our well-being and something much more difficult to quantify: wisdom.
How Nashville Lost Its Soul To “Experience” Tourism
Nashville is cool now. Which is to say, there are parts of Nashville that serve and appeal to and are filled with members of the so-called creative class and promise a different “experience” than your day-to-day life. The draw wasn’t major attractions, like the Opry, but attending a quaint show at the Bluebird Café. Like Austin or Portland, the draw to Nashville isn’t to go and be a tourist, but to go and spend a weekend sort of pretending that you live there — and, who knows, maybe one day make it a reality, and bring your friends and business along with you.
Reboot Of “Roseanne” Show Draws Unexpectedly Massive TV Audience
While nostalgia was expected to bring in eyeballs, no one predicted such a huge turnout on premiere night for the blue-collar family sitcom with a Donald Trump-supporting protagonist, especially among the younger demographic. But then, few predicted that Trump would become the Republican nominee and would win the presidential election when he first announced his candidacy.