When the piece premiered at Houston Grand Opera in 1983, most of the reviews were harsh: The New York Times pronounced it “a pretentious failure.” Now, with the Bernstein centennial upon us, David Patrick Stearns looks at two versions of A Quiet Place – one brand new and released by Bernstein’s estate – that aim to show audiences the work’s underestimated strengths.
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Anonymous Bitcoin Benefactor Rains Millions On Surprised Nonprofits
Pine is new to philanthropy, according to the donor, and did not set out to support any particular causes. “I was just thinking that I wanted to use my bitcoin for good in this world.” But several themes emerged. Pine made a point of showering largess on relatively obscure organizations, bestowing cash on a few high-profile groups — the American Civil Liberties Union’s political arm and Charity: Water each received $2 million — but mostly on small organizations and those working on complicated issues that might not attract average donors.
Boston’s Pair Of Rembrandt Portraits Gets Badly-Needed Restoration
“The two paintings, ‘Portrait of a Woman Wearing a Gold Chain’ and ‘Portrait of a Man Wearing a Black Hat,’ are a keystone in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ expanding collection of works by the Dutch masters. And now, for the first time in at least 50 years, both works are undergoing a painstaking restoration that could reveal new secrets in these familiar faces.” Says curator Ronni Baer, “They’ll just look like they’re alive again. Right now, they just look dead.”
Battle In Iowa Town Over Censoring LGBTQ Library Books
“More than 300 people have signed a petition to either ban or label and group materials related to homosexual and transgender content in the Orange City Public Library. … The controversy erupted in one of Iowa’s most conservative Republican counties in northwest Iowa after somebody filed a statement of concern to the library about a book on its shelves that featured LGBTQ content.”
Russ Solomon, Founder Of Tower Records, Dead At 92
“A high school dropout who made his first album sale at 16, dealing used jukebox records out of his father’s California drugstore, Mr. Solomon built a music empire that sprawled across more than a dozen countries and nearly 200 stores.”
Trump Nominates New Chairman Of NEH
“[Jon Parrish] Peede, a scholar of Southern literature by training, was publisher of the Virginia Quarterly Review from 2011 to 2016, and has also worked in various capacities at the National Endowment for the Arts, the [National Endowment of the Humanities’] sister agency. He has been serving as the agency’s acting director since May.”
Did Someone Just Discover ‘Hamlet’ Notes In Shakespeare’s Handwriting?
“Annotations in the margins of a 16th-century text that is believed to have been one of the sources for Hamlet could have been made by Shakespeare himself, according to an independent researcher. John Casson was looking through the British Library’s copy of François de Belleforest’s Histoires Tragiques, a 1576 French text thought to have been one of the sources for Shakespeare’s tragedy … [He] noticed that faded ink symbols had been made in the margins next to six passages.”
Atlanta Symphony Musicians Get Raises, More Players In New Contract – And Negotiations Were Friendly At Last
“That friendliness was in contrast to the bruising conflict between the orchestra and the Woodruff Arts Center, which led to lockouts in 2012 and 2014, picket lines, and harsh words. Ongoing deficits and deteriorating relations also brought about pay cuts, a shorter season and a shrinking orchestra.”
David Hallberg Injured Again
He was performing alongside Natalia Osipova in the Royal Ballet’s Giselle in London when he somehow hurt himself (no details were given) early in Act One. While he finished the act, he did not return to the stage after intermission. “Mr. Hallberg returned to the stage just 14 months ago, after a two-and-a-half-year injury-filled break and a painful, painstaking fight back to physical prowess. (Dancing with Ms. Osipova again, he has said, was one of his strongest motivations.)”
France’s Highest Court Throws Out Conviction Of Picasso’s Electrician For Possessing Stolen Artworks
In 2015, Pierre Le Guennec and his wife Danielle were given suspended sentences of two years in prison after authorities discovered a cache of 271 works by Picasso, believed to be stolen, stored in the couple’s garage. Now France’s Court of Cassation has ruled that prosecutors presented insufficient evidence that the artworks were actually stolen and has ordered the case to be retried.