an blog | AJBlog Central | Contact me | Advertise | Follow me:
You are here: Home / 2009 / Archives for January 2009

Dead City dies again

January 28, 2009 By

Having waited a lifetime for Korngold's Dead City to come around, I need never see it again. No discredit to the Covent Garden production - a rehire from Salzburg, Vienna and San Francisco - nor to the London cast. Stephen Gould and Nadia Michael gave their all in the central roles and Ingo Metzmacher conducted with delicacy and conviction. Seeing the work on stage, however, rather than hearing it on record and radio, I was forcibly struck by its irredeemable flaws - a libretto of … [Read more...]

01/28/09 9:08 AM | filed under: main |

John Mortimer is dead

January 16, 2009 By

I last saw him at a vernissage of my friend Zsuzsi Roboz, where a portrait of the sleeping Lady Mortimer hung fetchingly in the nude. John, in his wheelchair, smiled possessively. He was always out and about in London, never missed a good opening or a glass of bubbly. In court, as a combative barrister, he broke many a lance for freedom of expression. Later on, he was never short of a cause to champion on the op-ed pages, an injustice to decry. I clashed with him once or twice. He was never less … [Read more...]

01/16/09 12:56 PM | filed under: main |

I’ve been Kindled

January 13, 2009 By

I am struggling to come to terms with my reaction on discovering on Google that people are reading my last book on the electronic device known as Kindle. I was thrilled beyond all expectation. The heart always has a little leap when someone is reading your novel on a bus, or even browsing it in an airport bookstore. That signifies a kind of acceptance, irrevocable once the purchase has been made. But to find readers engaged in one of your works on a handheld computer when they … [Read more...]

01/13/09 12:58 PM | filed under: Uncategorized |

Some good comes from the New York Philharmonic

January 12, 2009 By

In Alan Gilbert's first season, just announced, the orchestra will pay a reparatory visit to North Vietnam, a gesture infinitely more meaningful and productive than Lorin Maazel's attention-grabbing swoop last year on North Korea. Why so? Because, while the US has dues to pay in both places, Vietnam these days is a fairly open society where people can read what they like on the internet and choose which concerts to attend. Some 17,000 Vietnamese bought into the … [Read more...]

01/12/09 11:58 AM | filed under: main |

Betty Freeman, RIP

January 5, 2009 By

Our dear friend Betty died yesterday in Los Angeles. I'm a bit too choked up to write much about her now, but I don't think anyone did more to develop musical creativity in the past generation. I once called her the Midwife to Post-Modernism. I think she liked that. She had a musical ear and a certainty of taste the like of which I have rarely found in the most celebrated conductors. She also had the capacity to stand apart from her work, and everyone else's, which is the hallmark of true … [Read more...]

01/5/09 10:32 AM | filed under: Uncategorized |

an ArtsJournal blog