Born in 1799 in Kent, south of London, Anna Atkins “made her most significant contribution across 10 years in the mid-19th century in which she created at least 10,000 images by hand. But it was what she did with those pictures that gave her a place in art history. … She created the first book to contain photographs.”
Tag: 06.23.17
‘Sleeping Beauty’ – Why Is Such A Socially Retrograde A Ballet So Perennially Popular? Here’s Why
“Isn’t this the most royalist of all ballets? King Florestan XXIV and his queen have a daughter, you see, and the story hinges on her finding Prince Right. Dynastic succession is the name of the game. … So why is this classic danced so regularly and well across America? Is royalism merely its surface?” The answer, says Alastair Macaulay, is this: “The fairy godmothers whom the monarchs invite to the heiress Aurora’s christening in the Prologue take the drama into a new, larger dimension: pure classicism. They make this a ballet about ballet itself – ballet as a language of harmonious idealism.”
Alan Gilbert’s New Conducting Job Will Be At The World’s Hottest New Concert Hall
“He is leaving a fixer-upper on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for a sleek new home in Hamburg, Germany. Alan Gilbert, the departing music director of the New York Philharmonic, announced Friday that he would be the next chief conductor of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, whose striking new $843 million concert hall overlooking Hamburg’s harbor opened earlier this year.”
Napoleon III’s Historic Theatre Will Have Its Original Stage Machinery Restored
A multi-year restoration of the 1857 theatre at the Château de Fontainebleau, which has already seen the golden jewel-box auditorium refurbished, will focus in its final phase on the original scenic machinery, the upper salons, and “the podium that houses one of France’s most important stage sets.”