Yearly Archives: 2021
Richard Wagner’s Great-Granddaughter, Eva Wagner-Pasquier, In Coma Following Near-Drowning
The 76-year-old former administrator, who worked at (among others) Covent Garden, the Paris Opera and the Met and was co-director at Bayreuth 2008-2015, was...
Chinese Communist Party Warns Celebrities About Moral Behavior
At a meeting in Beijing titled "Love the party, love the country, advocate morality and art," officials told entertainment and media figures that they...
Pianist Maria João Pires Injured In Fall
The 77-year-old was to perform on Sunday at the Riga Jurmala Festival, but she tripped and fell in the street, injuring her shoulder. After...
Is Making Wine Making Art?
Although winemakers have vision and bring that vision of what a particular wine should taste like to the blending table, their art depends inevitably...
Queen Of Denmark Hired As Designer On New Netflix Movie
Margrethe, who ascended to the Danish throne in 1972 and is commander-in-chief of the country’s defense forces, has also had a long career as an...
How Will Hollywood Know What Movies To Make With The Box Office So Screwed...
The result is a film industry in a fog, in many cases unable to even ascertain whether a movie is a hit or a...
In Search Of A New Frame For 9/11
Was it the beginning of something or a continuation? You can divide most of the anniversary specials between those that focus closely on the...
Behind China’s Crackdown On Popular Culture
At first glance, “common prosperity” and a desire to eliminate “sissy boy” fan culture seem like separate campaigns. But they point to a growing...
The Death Of Funny?
Could you sing this song at your nonprofit, apropos of nothing? Even with all the caveats in the world ahead of actually singing it?...
The 111-Page Poem From The (Previous) Roaring Twenties That Feels Like A Warning For...
Joseph Moncure March's The Wild Party "doesn't seem very far from our collective desire, in 2021, to lose ourselves in a throng of sympathetic...
Our Technology Has Gotten Ahead Of Our Ability To Control It
Emergent technologies have gained far-reaching power over our politics, our economy, and our lives, and no consensus exists on what—if anything—to do about it....
After Decades, Francis Ford Coppola Is Set To Shoot His Passion Project — With...
Megalopolis is "an ensemble piece involving an architect rebuilding New York City after a financial crisis cripples the metropolitan hub. … And he seems...
The Art Restorers And The Art Thieves
“Behind every antiquities trafficking ring preying upon cultural heritage for profit, there is someone reassembling and restoring these looted pieces to lend the criminal...
Plus-Size Ballerina Fights The Good Fight For Body Positivity
Colleen Werner is continuing to dance as she works toward a degree in mental health counseling, and she's collected thousands of Instagram followers and...
The Curious Case Of The Misbegotten Couple Who Started An American National Ballet
“Was the dream ever real?” asked ANB’s erstwhile artistic director, Rasta Thomas. “Or did I really get hoodwinked?” - Vanity Fair
Conductor Michel Corboz Dead At 87
Over 50 years as the director of the Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne (which he founded) and the Gulbenkian Choir in Lisbon, he built up...
Afghanistan’s All-Female Orchestra Goes Dark
Formed in 2014, it became a global symbol of the freedom many Afghans began to enjoy in the 20 years since the Taliban last...
COVID May Finally Be Ending The Plague Of Audience Coughing
Fear of COVID, to be more precise. "Even before you realise what you have done, anxious sideways looks will have been exchanged, the seeds...
This 39-Year-Old Biracial Female Composer Is The Future Of America’s Classical Canon
So argues Joshua Barone about Jessie Montgomery, whose works are set to get a total of 400 performances this calendar year and who's just...
We Can’t Address The Problems With Classic Musicals Just By Casting A Few Nonwhite...
"It would be absurd to call for them to be abandoned entirely. But if they're going to be embedded in the fabric of musical...
As Performances Start Up Again, Critics Are Being Too Generous
"Is there perhaps a clandestine pact to encourage audiences back out with some concerted cheerleading? If so, then the critics are doing us a...
‘A Symphony In Glass’: Nick Cave’s Latest Public Artwork Takes Shape In The New...
Every One, a glass mosaic that's the first of three to be installed in the pedestrian tunnel for the 42nd Street Shuttle, depicts vividly...
Michael K. Williams, Known For Playing Omar In ‘The Wire’, Dead At 54
"(He) was celebrated for delivering nuanced performances as swaggering street toughs, charming family men and smooth-talking gangsters," most famously as Omar Little, the stickup...
Actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, Star Of French New Wave, Dead At 88
"Belmondo, who embodied … a new type of male star characterized by pure virility rather than classic good looks," had his breakout role in...
Kashmiri Poets Say India Is Censoring Them
Poet Ghulam Mohammad Bhat: "In the last 30 years I have never seen this kind of suppression. ... There is silence everywhere, as if...
