Category: people

“Pavarotti had drafted two wills near the end of his yearlong battle with cancer. One divided his assets by Italian law, giving half to his second wife, Nicoletta Mantovani, and half to his four daughters. The second left the tenor’s U.S. holdings to Mantovani.”

“There’s nothing new in our fascination with celebrities. But the Internet and the spread of “tabloid” culture into the mainstream have created a whirlwind in which rumor, claim and rebuttal swirl and feed off one another.

He made more than 60 recordings. “When he was 12, he made his debut with an orchestra, playing the Grieg concerto with the Dallas Symphony as a last-minute replacement for a soloist who had fallen ill. Mr. Pennario ‘fibbed and said he knew the concerto when he didn’t,’ but he learned the piece in a week.”

“As a lieutenant in the Navy and a trained art historian, Mr. Parkhurst was deputy chief of Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives in Germany immediately after the war. The team… attracted an international group of young museum directors and curators, art professors and architects. Known as the ‘monuments men,’ their mission was to identify art works and buildings in need of protection and to ferret out caches of stolen art.”

“Alsop, who just wrapped up a successful inaugural season as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, is very much at the forefront of the American cultural arena today. People all over want to hear what she has to say, not just what she happens to conduct.”

European and American academics are meeting here this week to examine society’s fascination with “train wreck” female celebrities. Why do the public and media seem to get such a kick out of Britney’s latest meltdown, Lindsay’s booze and drug arrests, and Amy Winehouse’s rehab struggles?

“Queen Elizabeth II conferred a knighthood on “The Satanic Verses” author Salman Rushdie on Wednesday, a year after the announcement of the knighthood provoked protests from the Muslim world.”

“The house will go into foreclosure and be auctioned July 11 unless $45,000 is paid by June 30. An 11th-hour campaign has been mounted by community leaders Carver and Carmen Gayton to save the Anderson home. The house has been in the family since 1946.”

“At the moment, Boy George cannot come to the United States of America because he has been refused permission to enter by the USA Administration. This is not in respect of anything he has done in the past but because he is facing a trial in November in London for something that happened in April last year.” He was to have performed 24 concerts beginning in July.

“A hitherto largely unknown Turkish Islamic scholar, Fethullah Gülen, has been voted the world’s top intellectual in a poll to find the leading 100 thinkers. Gülen, the author of more than 60 books, won a landslide triumph after the survey – which is organised by the British magazine, Prospect, and Foreign Policy, a US publication – attracted more than 500,000 votes.”