“Known to opera aficionados for her large, flexible voice and astute musicianship, Ms. Curtis-Verna was associated with the Met from 1956 to 1966. Appearing in nearly 100 performances, she was cast regularly in leading roles, including Tosca and Aida.” In 1958, Time magazine called her “the Metropolitan’s most highly publicized relief aria-pitcher.”
Category: people
Dylan Moran, ‘Britain’s Favourite Miserabilist Comedian’
“The thing is, you have to look for a commonality when you’re writing about anything and nothing is more universal than lifespan. … You just have to keep staring ahead, and what’s approaching is incontinence and memory loss.”
Georgina Parkinson, Royal Ballet Star And ABT Coach, Is Dead At 71
“Although her training was in the Royal’s textbook classical style, Ms. Parkinson made her breakthrough in Les Biches, an experimental work of 1924 revived for the Royal in 1964 by Bronislava Nijinska. … Despite her respect for the classics, she found her best opportunities in new works.” Said ABT’s Julie Kent of Parkinson’s teaching, “I learned everything from her.”
400 Years Later, Scientists Examine Caravaggio’s Remains
The painter’s bones “had been housed in a special container called an ossuary in the town of Porto Ercole in Italy. … The cause of Caravaggio’s death has been something of a mystery,” with theories including “that he was assassinated for religious reasons, and that he collapsed with malaria on a deserted beach.”
In Astor Case, Being B’way Producer Was Image Enhancer
Attorneys for Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony D. Marshall, tried to make him look good by painting him as “a proud Marine who had seen combat at Iwo Jima; a distinguished former C.I.A. employee; a respected former diplomat; and a Tony Award-winning Broadway producer.”
After Decades Of Fear, Dance Teacher Reveals She’s Jewish
“The 84-year-old woman,” born in Paris and brought to the U.S. as a war bride, “60 years ago founded the renowned City Ballet, teaching generations of Dallas children how to dance.” But her Texan husband said his family mustn’t ever know she was Jewish, so she kept it a secret.
Artist Sues Paint Store For Its Paint
“In a lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court, Juan Carlos Macias alleges that an Evanston store sold him defective art supplies, including a professional-grade gloss, which caused at least 12of his paintings and artworks to deteriorate, fade and deform.”
New Research Suggests Michelangelo Was Different Than He’s Been Portrayed
“We tend to think that he’s petty, and we assumed that he was too great a genius to get along with people, and that’s just not true. We have enough evidence that shows he had a huge number of friends, and he is very loyal to them and his family.
Milorad Pavic, 80, Form-Shifting Novelist
“Dreamlike, playful and formally unorthodox, his novels were like hardbound hypertext in their insistence on offering readers alternate, nonlinear ways of navigating a story” such as dictionaries and crossword puzzles. His best-known book was the 1988 Dictionary of the Khazars, which, some observers said, prefigured the post-Yugoslav wars.
Leslie Caron: The Gamine Of Gigi Wants To Be A Dramatic Grande Dame
“When I was doing tours of musicals in America I really wanted to do St. Joan and The Cherry Orchard, and people would turn around and laugh and say, ‘Honey, that’s not for you’.” Now that, in her 70s, she’s won an acting Emmy, “I’m keeping myself in good health because I want that great [dramatic] part on Broadway and then I’ll be really satisfied.”