Category: people

“Palestinians are staging the equivalent of a state funeral for Mr. Darwish, 67, an honour previously accorded only to Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004. Mr. Darwish’s award-winning poetry, translated into more than 20 languages, has served as an eloquent witness of Palestinian exile and loss of homeland.”

“A lanky man with a seemingly natural kinetic nervousness and a perpetual expression of worry, Mr. Furth was often cast as an odd duck, a milquetoast or a stammery, uneasy type with something to hide. A list of his television credits describes a history of popular series from the 1960s to the ’90s.”

“Nina Ananiashvili, 45, is slated to become her country’s culture minister. The internationally renowned ballerina took over as artistic director of the company at the personal invitation of Georgia’s president Mikhail Saakashvili in 2004 and is married to Georgia’s deputy foreign minister.”

Soprano Anna Netrebko is extending her pregnancy leave and has withdrawn from performances of Puccini’s “La Boheme” at the Metropolitan Opera in December and January. Netrebko, 36, announced in February that she and her fiance, Uruguayan baritone Erwin Schrott, were expecting, and the Met said Friday she is due to give birth next month.

Gray wrote more than 30 plays, including “Quartermaine’s Terms,” “Otherwise Engaged” and “The Old Masters,” as well as five novels and the screenplay for the 1987 film “A Month in the Country.” A rakish figure who claimed to have consumed three bottles of champagne a day for years, Gray also was steeped in the academic world.

“He conducted Maria Callas’s U.S. debut, and became one of the diva’s favourite conductors in a collaboration that spanned several years, performances and recordings. He co-founded the Dallas Opera – initially called the Dallas Civic Opera – with the late Lawrence Kelly. Rescigno became its artistic director and Callas gave the company’s inaugural concert.”

The writer was buried on the monastery’s grounds after the service which was broadcast live on state television, featured a military band and had all the hallmarks of a state funeral.

“I play piano like a multimedia website. You have the pictures, you have the scores, also you have the harmonies, it’s like you’re playing with computers, but obviously with heart.”

“While Muscovites lined up to honor the Nobel Laureate, four Russian soldiers in dress uniform stood at attention at the open coffin in the Russian Academy of Sciences — a telling symbol of recognition for the former exile. A large portrait of Solzhenitsyn and a Russian flag completed the backdrop.”

“Dante reserved his sharpest vitriol for the city fathers of his hometown Florence. Seven centuries on and Florence’s city council is finally considering a symbolic end to the banishment by granting Dante a posthumous medal. A solid majority of council members voted last month to grant the poet the city’s highest honor, the golden florin. Several leftists, though, voted ‘no’.”