Category: people

“The founder of the RSC and the man who led the National Theatre to its new home has not worked in Stratford or on the South Bank in years. His operatic commitments at Glyndebourne have dried up, and he’s never been asked to work at Shakespeare’s Globe. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that Hall’s career is petering out. Directors, like conductors, never retire.”

Called the Guy Lombardo Music Centre, it has been dogged by poor attendance, with only 400 visitors in 2007.

Gonzalez was one of Spain’s most acclaimed poets and a member of the literary community who opposed the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco

“Now declared free of pancreatic cancer two years after diagnosis, Marilyn Horne adds another milestone to her long list of accolades: Prima donna — and survivor.”

“At the age of 36, Anna Netrebko is certainly as substantial a star as any in the new operatic firmament. The evidence of the Russian soprano’s gigawattage just keeps piling up.”

“The Israeli pianist and conductor has taken Palestinian citizenship and said he believed his rare new status could serve a model for peace between the two peoples.”

A lawyer who made serious money in real estate deals in the 1950s and 1960s, Mr. Cohl was seduced by the movie business after a chance visit to the Cannes International Film Festival, and spent the next 40 years schmoozing backers, stars and directors.

“Together with his brother, dancer Fernando Alonso, and Fernando’s wife, Alicia Alonso, Alberto Alonso founded what became the National Ballet of Cuba in 1948. The three forged a unique Cuban style of ballet that combined classical Russian and brilliant Western techniques with a national flair and sensuality.”

“Johnny Grant, the avuncular honorary mayor of Hollywood who travelled the world as Tinseltown’s No. 1 cheerleader for more than a half-century, has died. He was 84.”

Judith Weir may not be as well-known as John Adams or as controversial as Elliott Carter, but she “has risen to the top of the tree and found a genuinely large public by simply being a wonderful composer… Weir’s unwillingness to be pinned down to a position is mirrored by her music, which is oblique, humorous and averse to striking obviously emotive attitudes.”