New Opera Cancelled In Russia After Venues Refuse To Host It, Composer Gets Beaten Up, And Death Threats Are Made

MUSIC Posted: August 29, 2014 1:22 am

Ilya Demutsky’s New Jerusalem is about a vigilante who tracks down and kills pedophiles. Once a video trailer for the premiere was made and word got around, all hell started breaking loose.

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Weekend Listening With Jim Wilke
Now and then, Rifftides alerts readers to Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest, the program in which the veteran broadcaster presents his recordings of the region’s jazz artists. Jim’s long-running Sunday series has become ... read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2018-06-22
BlogBacks: Cultural Property Lawyer Rick St. Hilaire & Getty Spokesperson Ron Hartwig on the Getty Bronze
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The Mint quarries another gem
In today’s Wall Street Journal, I review the U.S. premiere of Miles Malleson’s Conflict, first staged in London in 1925 and never performed since then. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Forty-nine years after his ... read more
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Replay: Richard Wilbur and Robert Lowell read and talk about their work
Richard Wilbur and Robert Lowell read and talk about their work on an undated episode of USA: Poetry, originally telecast by NET, the predecessor of PBS, in 1966: (This is the latest in a ... read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2018-06-22
Replay: Terence Rattigan’s French Without Tears
Anthony Asquith’s 1940 film version of Terence Rattigan’s French Without Tears, adapted by Anatole de Grunewald and Ian Dalrymple from Rattigan’s play and starring Ray Milland and Ellen Drew: (This is the latest in ... read more
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Almanac: William Haggard on well-made plays
“He liked a play to have a beginning and a middle and an end; he liked to spot the crises, to recognize a craftsman at his business of constructing craftily; he like a firm ending, ... read more
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When Grant Green Got Funky
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Antiquities Ambiguities: Parsing the Legal Arguments in the Battle of the Getty Bronze
Italian Judge Giacomo Gasparini‘s June 8 decision giving the laurel wreath to Team Italy in the Olympian legal contest over the Getty Bronze seems to me persuasively well-reasoned (although awkwardly worded in the Getty’s 46-page ... read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2018-06-21
Martin Amis on Poetry and Posterity
AS smart and funny as his novels are, Martin Amis is a devastatingly good essayist as well. I spoke to him recently about his latest collection, The Rub of Time, which assembles several decades ... read more
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On the front lines of Culture War II
In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column I report on an on-stage culture clash that I witnessed last week in St. Louis. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Culture War II, in which “woke” progressives ... read more
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So you want to see a show?
Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more ... read more
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Almanac: Dr. Johnson on cant
“My dear friend, clear your mind of cant. You may talk as other people do. You may say to a man, ‘Sir, I am your most humble servant.’ You are not his most humble servant. ... read more
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Snapshot: Stan Freberg’s “Little Blue Riding Hood”
Stan Freberg, Daws Butler and June Foray perform “Little Blue Riding Hood,” Freberg’s parody of Jack Webb’s Dragnet, on an unidentified 1953 telecast: (These are the latest in a series of arts- and history-related ... read more
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Almanac: William Haggard on shoptalk
“Shop fascinated her, for she knew that most men were interesting only when they were talking it. As long as one hadn’t heard it all that fatal time too often. And behind the technicalities were ... read more
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Two-Phase Engagement
Community engagement practitioners are frequently asked to justify their work using traditional arts marketing/development metrics: ticket sales and donations. Don’t get ahead of me. This is not a touchy-feely objection to practical outcomes. Ticket sales ... read more
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Poet Hart Crane, 1899-1932 The great but tragic American poet Hart Crane (1899-1932) can’t help but exert a magnetic attraction to composers with his fusion of lyricism, modernism and mad, extravagant fantasy. Of course, no ... read more
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Verdi v Shakespeare? Falstaff’s no contest
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From 2003: As anyone knows who’s been in journalism for more than the past 20 minutes or so, fact checking is an increasingly lost art. Time was when many magazines—if not most—rigorously checked every factual ... read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2018-06-19

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