Category: people

London’s Barbican Centre was considered a prime example of how not to build and run a performing arts complex when Sir John Tusa first took up the reins back in 1995. Twelve years on, Tusa prepares to depart his position having led a near-complete turnaround at the Barbican.

There aren’t many conductors who specialize in ballet repertoire, so when New York City Ballet’s music director announced that she was leaving the company two years ago, officials scrambled to find a replacement who could do more than just give the beat. They found Fayçal Karoui, a flamboyantly energetic Frenchman without much ballet experience, but with an enthusiasm for the work that seems to dovetail nicely with City Ballet’s “unusually broad musical repertory and Balanchine-derived belief in the primacy of the music.”

“Toxicological investigations might have solved one of the most enduring mysteries in the history of the Florentine Renaissance — the sudden and almost simultaneous deaths of Francesco I de’ Medici and his wife Bianca Cappello in October 1587.”

A soprano with New York City Opera is suing the Hilton hotel chain for $6 million, claiming that she suffered more than 150 painful and scarring bedbug bites while staying at a Hilton in Phoenix. She may require laser surgery to reduce the scarring from the bites, and claims that the incident could hurt her career in the increasingly image-conscious opera world.

If the record companies and promoters have their way, Scottish singing sensation Nicky Spence will shortly be the next “classical crossover” superstar. But ask the 23-year-old Spence himself about such plans, and he sounds well aware of the pitfalls of the crossover path. He’s happy to use his rags-to-riches life story for promotional purposes if it gets him noticed, but in the end, it’s the operatic stage that calls to him.

“Alice Munro has this year done a remarkable thing: still in full command of her powers, she announced that she has finished writing because at 75, she has used up all her material and has nothing left to say.”

Another Harry Potter comes out this summer. Author JK Rowling “would be the first to admit she’s perfectly ordinary, but because the public doesn’t have easy access to her, a tiny sparkle of magic is preserved. Would JK really command the same extraordinary appeal if she delivered herself unconditionally into the hands of the media?”

In an end-of-year reminiscence, Frank Rich remembers his longtime friend, playwright Wendy Wasserstein, who died last January. “The Wendy Wasserstein who was always there for everybody (including me) at every crisis and celebration, the Wendy with that uproarious (yet musical) laugh and funny (yet never bitchy) dialogue for every fraught situation, the Wendy the whole world knew and adored was also an intensely private person who left many mysteries behind.”

When Judee Sill died of a drug overdose in 1979, the 35-year-old singer was obscure, and barely rated a mention or obit. Yet Tim Page suggests her place and influence is still alive…

A list of the greats who left us.