Category: people

Everyday life in Toronto has gotten decidedly weird lately. “You may have stumbled recently across neatly wallpapered bus shelters, perhaps being attended by a primly dressed man in a crinoline skirt… Trees, at times, have worn sweaters. Fire hydrants have been garlanded in cake icing. There have been knitted cosies for bike locks and public phone receivers, dress-up parties in Trinity Bellwoods Park, and a well-tended garden of ferns growing from the toilets and urinals of Metro Hall. Tiny gold trophies have been affixed around town, engraved with the slogan ‘Good For You.'” Meet the Interventionists, artists determined to bring their work directly to the public, and to do so with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

“Today Boulez has become such a globally venerated figure, that it is difficult to appreciate how radical he was. To say he has mellowed would be an understatement: today he is often found conducting in those very opera houses whose demolition he earlier demanded and conducting operas such as Wagner’s Parsifal, whose lush late romanticism would surely seem to be inimical to the high modernism for which he used to be the noisiest proselytiser.”

A convicted murderer and prison escapee who led a secret life as a Chicago-area poet for nearly two decades today waived his right to an extradition hearing and was ordered returned to Massachusetts to resume serving a life sentence.

“The double bass is one of the few remaining instruments that have never produced a bankable star in classical music. There has been no Itzhak Perlman, no Yo-Yo Ma, no James Galway of the double bass,” largely because the damn things are so wildly awkward and difficult to play. “Playing a simple melody may demand that a player negotiate leaps of two or three feet, from over the head to down near the belly and back again. Moreover, even under the best of circumstances, it is hard to make the unadorned tone of the instrument sound anything but gray and burly.” Enter DaXun Zhang, winner of competitions previously untouched by bass players, and possessor of a tone so beautiful and varied that the listener might forget what instrument is being played.

“Opera superstar Luciano Pavarotti had neck surgery to repair two vertebrae earlier this month. The 69-year-old tenor spent two days in hospital in New York for the operation, which was described as ‘routine and regular’ by his spokesperson. Pavarotti is to return to Italy this weekend before continuing his farewell tour in South Africa next month.”

“Bobby Short came to personify what he sang about. He was that miraculous instant when Ginger Rogers takes Fred Astaire’s hand and whirls toward him, white gown alight. He was every bulb in the Chrysler Building’s crown, every first grown-up kiss, every Tiffany box hidden in a pocket. When Bobby Short entered the small spotlight in that Upper East Side hangout, depression large and small dissolved into the champagne; history’s headlines and your own true stories were gladly left at home. When his job was over, you strolled into the New York night, succored. Of course we knew it was fool’s gold, but the glamour and potential that the big city offered us when we were young became real again in the Cafe Carlyle, at the other end of a voice.”

New Jersey philanthropist Herbert Axelrod has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for tax evasion. “Once called the Medici of the Meadowlands for his patronage of the arts, he was praised just a year earlier for his sale of 30 Stradivarius, Amati and Guaneri violins, violas and cellos to the orchestra. He and some experts had valued the collection at $50 million, but the symphony was able to buy the collection for $18 million.”

“Sadie’s greatest achievement was the 20-volume The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, which he edited from 1970 onwards, along with a number of companion titles including The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. He also worked on its successor, published in 2001, having been made emeritus editor in 1999.”

Cabaret singer Bobby Short, the tuxedoed embodiment of New York style and sophistication who was a fixture at his piano in the Carlyle Hotel for more than 35 years, died Monday. He was 80.

Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown has become the kind of celebrity who has trouble going out in public. “Gone are the days when he could sit undisturbed in the Grand Gallery of the Louvre, sketching out the murder scene that opens his blockbuster novel. He has stopped taking commercial flights because of the commotion that usually accompanies him, with people lining up in the aisle to get his autograph on books, cocktail napkins, even the occasional air-sickness bag.”