Category: people

Linda Ronstadt praised Michael Moore during a performance at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas and called him a “great American patriot” and “someone who is spreading the truth” Saturday. “Some among the crowd of 4,500 stormed out, tore down concert posters and tossed cocktails into the air. Aladdin president Bill Timmins said Ronstadt was escorted off the property, saying she “spoiled a wonderful evening for our guests and we had to do something about it.”

“Aladdin President Bill Timmins ordered security guards to escort pop diva Linda Ronstadt off the property following a concert Saturday night during which she expressed support for controversial documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. Timmins, who was among the almost 5,000 fans in the audience at the Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts, had Ronstadt escorted to her tour bus and her belongings from her hotel room sent to her. Timmins also sent word to Ronstadt that she was no longer welcome at the property for future performances.”

At a concert earlier this month at Wolf Trap, Linda Ronstadt also dedicated an encore to Michael Moore: “The biggest excitement of the night, by a long shot, came when Ronstadt then dedicated her encore of “Desperado” to filmmaker Michael Moore, kick-starting a boo-cheer competition throughout the venue that drowned out her singing and left grown-ups in tuxes and evening gowns yelling at each other on their way to the parking lot.”

According to this German website, the renowned conductor Carlos Kleiber has died at the age of 74.

With chess master Bobby Fischer now in custody, attention focuses on the unpleasant side of his personality. But Gary Kasparov would like to see beyond that: “Despite the ugliness of his decline, Bobby Fischer deserves to be remembered for the great things he did for chess and for his immortal games. I would prefer to focus on not letting his personal tragedy become a tragedy for chess.”

Elton John warns that free speech is endangered in the US. “The singer likened the current ‘fear factor’ to McCarthyism in the 1950s. ‘There was a moment about a year ago when you couldn’t say a word about anything in this country for fear of your career being shot down by people saying you are un-American’.”

Celebration of the 100th birthday of Isaac Bashevis Singer has proven controversial. “While many consider him one of the best Jewish writers of all time, others in the Yiddish literary world see him as melodramatic, profane, and even unworthy of the Nobel Prize he received in 1978.”

Former chess champion Bobby Fischer has been arrested and detained in Japan by the request of US authorities. “The arrest capped a cat-and-mouse game between U.S. authorities and Fischer, who shuttled among several nations, including Japan, the Philippines and Hungary, to avoid arrest. A grand jury in Washington charged him with violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act by going to Yugoslavia for the chess match against Boris Spassky.”

At 74, Stephen Sondheim remains “available to his work, ever ready to amend and develop. As a result no two revivals are likely to sound the same. The small-bore Sweeney Todd at Trafalgar Square at the end of the month will be worlds apart from the full-orchestra Royal Opera House production, yet both are true to concept, as are many fringe and amateur stagings; there are 17 Sweeneys this summer across the UK and North America. For a man without a Broadway blockbuster or a pop-chart song, Sondheim has unrivalled diversity to his appeal.”

Stephen Klein, a former executive director of the National Symphony Orchestra who has spent most of the last decade running the Pittsburgh Public Theater, has been named the new managing director of the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. The New Jersey troupe is considerably less well-known than the Pittsburgh company Klein left last summer, but Klein has always seemed to like a challenge, and has never shied away from taking a job perceived to be less prestigious than his last one.