“Northern Italy has been pounded this summer by rain and thunderstorms. About 25 opera performances have been soaked … Determined to bring an end to this unpredictability, mayor Flavio Tosi says that he’s planning to launch an international competition to draw suggestions for how the massive architectural task should be accomplished.”
Tag: 08.01.14
Who Are We? (And Other Fundamental Things That Define Us As Human)
“Why are we the only species on earth that is concerned about things that don’t directly concern our survival or that of our offspring? Porcupines do not look up at the night sky and wonder what all the sparkly bits are; weasels don’t worry about what other weasels think of them; lobsters really don’t enjoy pub quizzes.”
Conductor Daniel Harding Cops To Having Been “Obnoxious” When He Started His Career
“I had that attention when I was a very excitable, immature young man. And I look at my colleagues because now there are so many of us, of our generation, and I’m jealous of those who started later and have their great moment in the sun when they’re kind of grown up. I’m always going to be paying for the impression I created as an obnoxious 22-year-old.”
Norwegians Just Love Their Really Slow And Boring TV Shows
“The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation has been creating some of the world’s slowest TV – shows like a 7-hour train ride or 18 hours of salmon fishing. Norwegian audiences are loving it. (audio)
Univ. Of Maryland Revives Its Proposal To Rescue Corcoran Gallery
U.Md. president Wallace Loh testified in court that, if the judge should deny permission for the current plan to break up the Corcoran and divide it between the National Gallery of Art and George Washington University, “he would be willing to quickly revive a version of the $46 million Maryland partnership plan that the Corcoran rejected in February.”
What Rembrandt Found In The Rape Of Lucretia That Other Artists Missed
Philip Kennicott: “One [hand] resolutely grasps the dagger, the other is held open, in a pose of futile resistance. And they are very sturdy hands for a woman with a face as young as the Lucretia in this image. Rembrandt’s Lucretia kills herself with the hands of a man. Which makes visual the ugly truth of the story: Her suicide is a final act of male violence.”
Dance’s Top Crimes Of Passion
Inspired by summer heat, Sarah Kaufman selects four of the most compelling hot-headed murders in the dance repertory. (You know all the characters, though the choices may surprise – for instance, Kaufman passes over Martha Graham’s depiction of Medea.)
The Greatest Real-Life Adulterous Couple Ever To Inspire Works Of Art (I’ll Take “Doomed Lovers” for $600, Alex)
“[Dante] created such a compelling portrait of undying love that [they] went down in Western cultural history … They have inspired symphonic tone poems by Tchaikovsky and others, paintings by artists such as everyone from Botticelli to Ingres to Dante Gabriel Rosetti, no fewer than three sculptures by Rodin, including his famous The Kiss – and more than 18 operas.”
Sondheim OKs A Hard Rock Version Of “Sweeney Todd”
Washington, D.C.’s Landless Theatre Company managed to persuade the famously exacting composer to approve a prog-metal arrangement of the <em>Sweeney</em> score for electric guitar and keyboards, bass and drums. Auditions for this version were “not traditional in any sense.”
Publishers: We’ve Got A Wonderful New Site, And You’ll Provide Most Of The Content
“The new meaning of ‘to platform’ is something akin to: Take a traditional media company and add technology that allows readers to upload digital content as varied as links, text, video and other media.”