Category: people

The photos of Samuel Beckett have been black and white. Now an exhibition of color pictures: “Whereas those who met Beckett invariably spoke of his piercing, pale blue eyes – ‘scarily intelligent,’ as Michael Colgan, the director of the Gate theatre in Dublin, described them – the published portraits of Beckett remained in black and white.” – Sunday Times (UK)

— the $250,000 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, given to choreographers. – Chicago Tribune

• — who turned 85 this week and has just published a wide-ranging collection of his essays, “Echoes Down the Corridor.” NPR

Unveiling a new photo book of her life’s work, infamous Hitler-era filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (whose “Triumph of the Will,” has been renowned and despised as the best propaganda film ever made) pleaded with the press to acknowledge her as an artist, and not as a Nazi. “Ninety percent of what has been written about me has been made up.” – Yahoo! News (Reuters)

London’s Barbican is devoting an exhibition to Oscar Wilde. But at least one critic isn’t happy about it: “In fact he was a second-rate poseur and plagiarist, and his influence on the visual arts in this country was almost wholly destructive. His apologists call him a populariser, but forget to mention the devastating effect that his popularising had on the course of British art.” – The Telegraph (UK)

Bass-baritone Bryn Terfel has upset opera fans at Covent Garden, Salzburg and Munich opera houses by canceling his next four months of performances to be with his wife for the birth of their third child, due in January. – BBC Music Magazine

Theatre and movie critic Vincent Canby dies of cancer at the age of 76. – New York Times

Where would our musical cultural have been without Pierre Boulez? “Important works by a vast number of other composers — Elliott Carter, Gyorgy Ligeti, Harrison Birtwistle — would never have been commissioned or recorded. And there would have been no one to keep contemporary music in the public eye, especially in the public eye represented by the television camera.” – New York Times

Marshall McLuhan was seen as a visionary in his time, but soon after he died, his pronouncements were regarded as quaint and outdated. But now he’s been adopted as an icon of the new digital age. “Everyone thought that McLuhan was talking about TV, but what he was really talking about was the Internet — two decades before it appeared.” – New York Times

For years, British composer Harrison Birtwistle lived as a recluse on a remote French hillside. Now, at 66, he’s moved back to Britain, with some strong ideas about English culture. “I believe we have in this country the best musicians in the world, but we don’t have the best orchestras because we don’t give them the money to rehearse. It’s spread too thin. So second-rate becomes good enough, and we don’t know the difference any more.” – The Telegraph (UK)