Opera singer Rosalind Plowright comments on booing Bartoli at La Scala

 opera, opinion  No Responses »
Dec 092012
 

Alceste La Scala 1987 with Pier Luigi Pizzi Opera singer Rosalind Plowright comments on booing Bartoli at La Scala described it as the worst night of her oper­atic life, after Celeste Aida Roberto Alagna gave a mil­it­ary salute and walked off stage, Katia Ric­ciarelli quit the opera house refus­ing to come back, and Cal­las, Pav­arotti, Ver­rett, Caballé and many oth­ers have all been on the receiv­ing end. Being booed by the log­gion­isti at ’s can be thought of as a rite of pas­sage, as found out last Monday, but does it have to be that way?

While the heck­lers of the upper gal­lery have become a laughing-stock abroad (and amongst most Italian opera goers) it doesn’t dis­tract from the fact that a singer, how­ever fam­ous, is made from skin and bone like the rest of us.… [con­tinue reading]

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So does Ute Lemper approve of Angela Merkel? Nein!

 cabaret, opinion  No Responses »
Aug 242012
 

Ute Lemper Angela Merkel So does Ute Lemper approve of Angela Merkel? Nein!

Ute Lem­per is tour­ing Europe with her cab­aret pro­gramme which includes mater­ial by that most polit­ical of  theatre writers, Ber­tolt .

Lem­per her­self has always been out­spoken about her views, upset­ting much of the Ger­man estab­lish­ment along the way. The mix of her nat­ive Ger­man tongue, with almost per­fect Eng­lish and French, might have made her the European par excel­lence, yet she has chosen to make her home in .

She talked to ’s Cor­ri­ere della Sera about how she views Europe from the other side of the pond.

I was always for the cre­ation of a single polit­ical body cap­able of help­ing Europe go for­ward, but I think it’s extremely dif­fi­cult for nations with such diverse val­ues and cul­ture  to live together under the same roof.… [con­tinue reading]

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Roberto Bolle’s Twitter comment on Naples and the homeless provokes an angry flood of tweets

 ballet, Italy, opinion  6 Responses »
Feb 062012
 

The home­less who camp out and sleep under the arches of the San Carlo theatre, one of Naples’ jew­els, are emblem­atic of the degrad­a­tion of this city”

Roberto Bolle Twitter Roberto Bolles Twitter comment on Naples and the homeless provokes an angry flood of tweetsAnd with this twittered com­ment, Italian dan­cer set off an ava­lanche of angry tweets yes­ter­day. The tem­per­at­ures through­out a snow-covered are low, and many home­less (though not in Naples’ milder cli­mate) have died in the last week.

”It would be bet­ter if you danced and didn’t speak” wrote one angry Neapol­itan. Another added “Dear @Rober­to­Bolle, the “degrad­a­tion” of a city isn’t its home­less people, but VIPs totally deaf to the real prob­lems in a coun­try that is going through hard times”.

Naples’ Green party were angry because,

Bolle shows he cares only about the appear­ance of a city that has always given him a warm welcome.”

The tweet was quickly elim­in­ated from the timeline.… [con­tinue reading]

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Egyptian film star is sent to jail for insulting Islam

 cinema, opinion  1 Response »
Feb 022012
 

The Arab world’s most fam­ous comic actor, Adel Imam, has received a three-month jail sen­tence for insult­ing Islam in films and plays.

Imam, who has fre­quently poked fun at author­it­ies and politi­cians of all col­ors dur­ing a 40-year career, has one month to appeal the sen­tence and will remain out of jail until the appeal pro­cess is concluded.

The sen­tence yes­ter­day even­ing came weeks after Islam­ists swept most seats in a par­lia­ment­ary elec­tion. The case was brought by Asran Man­sour, a law­yer with ties to Islam­ist groups, and had lan­guished in court for months, judi­cial sources said.

Man­sour accused the actor of offend­ing Islam and its sym­bols, includ­ing beards and the Jilbab, a loose-fitting gar­ment worn by some Muslims.

via Reu­ters… [con­tinue reading]

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“Who’s pulling the strings in Russia’s ballet revolution?” asks The Observer’s Luke Jennings

 ballet, opinion  No Responses »
Jan 012012
 

Sleeping Beauty Duato Whos pulling the strings in Russias ballet revolution? asks The Observers Luke JenningsThe bal­let world was sur­prised when  (ex-director of Spain’s Com­pañía Nacional de Danza) was headhunted by St Petersburg’s Mikhail­ovsky Theatre, maybe enticed by the fat wal­let of gen­eral dir­ector Vladi­mir Kekh­man. He has now been at the company’s helm for a year. When Mari­in­sky star  jumped on board a couple of months later fans were per­plexed at him leav­ing the clas­sical com­pany par excel­lence to join the rel­at­ively unknown Mikhail­ovsky with a con­tem­por­ary cho­reo­grapher as its dir­ector. When towards the end of 2011 two of ballet’s hot­test new stars, and Nat­alia Osipova, left the Bolshoi com­pany to be part of Kekhman’s group, jaws hit the ground.

Luke Jenning’s in today’s Observer asks “Who’s pulling the strings in Russia’s bal­let revolu­tion?”.… [con­tinue reading]

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“A stripper in heels is like a ballerina en pointe” says University researcher defending lap-dancing clubs

 ballet, opinion  No Responses »
Dec 062011
 

red shoes A stripper in heels is like a ballerina en pointe says University researcher defending lap dancing clubsJudith Hanna, a 75-year-old grand­mother and anthro­po­logy pro­fessor, spent an after­noon in 2005 on a beach in Jack­son­ville, Flor­ida, phở­to­graph­ing women’s swim­suited back­sides, reports Bloomberg News.

Hanna, who has spent almost 50 years study­ing the cul­tural expres­sion of dance, called the field­work “inter­est­ing.” Her pic­tures, meant to demon­strate local enthu­si­asm for exposed flesh, became evid­ence in a nightclub’s fight against an ordin­ance requir­ing strip­pers to bet­ter cover their der­ri­eres. Since 1995, Hanna, a Uni­ver­sity of Mary­land researcher, has helped clubs repel efforts to tax, reg­u­late or close them, arguing more than 100 times that striptease is just as much an art as ballet.

Next year, her lap-dances-are-art argu­ment will be part of an appeal before ’s highest court. A strip­per in heels is like a baller­ina en pointe, she says, and her com­mu­nic­a­tion of feel­ing is no dif­fer­ent than that of the City Bal­let — and no less pro­tec­ted by the First Amend­ment.… [con­tinue reading]

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Marat/Sade director says, ‘I prefer the critics on Twitter’

 opinion, theatre  No Responses »
Oct 262011
 

Anthony Neilson, dir­ector of the much dis­cussed rivival of Marat/Sade, voices his opin­ion in ’s theatre blog:

If a reviewer should deem a pro­duc­tion a fail­ure, so be it. But at least start from the pre­sump­tion of pur­pose; dis­cuss the ideas. And this has been the rev­el­a­tion for me, as a rel­at­ive lud­dite, from this small fuss. There is now more insight to be had, in aggreg­ate, from than from our print media; and indis­put­ably more depth to be found in blogs writ­ten from pas­sion, and in reflec­tion. It is a small cul­tural revolu­tion and – like all revolu­tions – it looks like a good thing. For now.

via The Guard­ian… [con­tinue reading]

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