Category: people

Turns out that Scotland’s celebrated author Robert Louis Stevenson was also a composer. “Members of the Edinburgh-based Robert Louis Stevenson Club have been presented with the jaunty piece, titled Aberlady Links, and have now had it recorded for the first time. The short composition, thought to be the only one Stevenson invented, was written in Samoa, where he died, for flageolet – a traditional recorder.”

A prominent Afghan poet has apparently been beaten to death by her husband in what is known in Afghanistan as an “honor killing.” The United Nations has condemned the murder of Nadia Anjuman, and the poet’s husband and mother have both been arrested in the case. While not technically legal, “honor killings,” in which women are beaten to death by male relatives to save the family from some imagined disgrace, are still widely accepted in many parts of Afghanistan.

Mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson is one of the sought-after stars of the classical music world, and her appearance on a concert program is a sure audience draw. But over the last year, Lieberson has become a chronic no-show, canceling engagements at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, and the San Francisco Opera. Officially, Lieberson’s representatives say that she is suffering from a “lower back injury,” but details have been few, and speculation is rampant that the cancer which attacked the singer five years ago may have returned.

In America, he is known almost exclusively as the evil Emperor Palpatine from the Star Wars films. But Ian McDiarmid is one of British theatre’s respected eminences, and he sees his role in one of America’s dominant pop culture phenomena as an interesting sidebar, but hardly the signature moment of his career. Still, the role seems to have grown on him, in all its one-dimensional glory. “I thought Palpatine was a pretty good character. I like the notion that he didn’t have any psychological subtlety or depth, that he was just solidly evil and the dirtiest word in his vocabulary was ‘friend’. I thought that was terrific.”

John Fowles, author of The French Lieutenant’s Woman, has died at his home in the UK, aged 79. “Fowles’ writing career spanned more than 40 years and also included works such as The Magus and The Collector.”

Charles Mackerras is turning 80, and he’s being celebrated. “In some respects the deification of Mackerras is a bit silly. Once a conductor reaches a certain age no one will say a word against him – even though he is palpably the same man who was criticised earlier in his career and is still capable of the occasional dud performance. Age somehow confers the mantle of genius. That says something about the conductor’s role: orchestras want a father figure. They will put up with irascibility and a demanding nature in a way they wouldn’t have done from the same person when he was younger. But Mackerras’s public standing has never been higher.”

“With his pinched face and shambling gait, he is, to say the least, an incongruous figure; he looks more like a local wino than a world-famous man of letters. But [Michel] Houellebecq, 47, is the nearest thing to a literary superstar France has produced in recent years. His books have been translated into 36 languages and recent film deals have made him a multi-millionaire… [But in France,] he is often depicted as a calculating and manipulative operator who courts controversy to boost sales. This is also the argument of two recent biographies of Houellebecq.”

“Peter Hall, the eminent British director who oversaw four productions at Lyric Opera of Chicago, including a stellar new Otello in 2001, has withdrawn as director of a new production of Michael Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage. The opera is scheduled to open Nov. 19. According to the Lyric, the move comes ‘on doctor’s orders’ for the 75-year-old director. Hall has not been feeling well over the past few days, and he leaves for his home in London today for medical tests.”

“As one of the few to follow in the footsteps of Philip Johnson at the Museum of Modern Art, Terence Riley has had an important platform in the world of architecture and design over the last 14 years. He helped raise awareness of foreign architects like Rem Koolhaas, Kazuyo Sejima and Herzog & de Meuron in the United States. He made architecture shows a high-profile staple of the museum’s exhibition program. He served on the juries of several major architecture projects and on countless panels discussing architecture. And he was instrumental in the creation of the new Modern, the redesigned building by Yoshio Taniguchi that opened last year. Now someone else will fill Mr. Riley’s shoes; he announced on Thursday that he would step down as the museum’s chief curator of architecture and design in March.”

R.C. Gorman was 74. “His work and personality exerted an indelible presence on the Taos and Northern New Mexico arts scenes. Internationally, he was one of the foremost Native American artists working today.”