Me and High Culture
I have very little DNA “culture” in my bones. The few ballets I’ve attended, I didn’t leave thinking about the great artistry of the danseuse or the danseur.
I have very little DNA “culture” in my bones. The few ballets I’ve attended, I didn’t leave thinking about the great artistry of the danseuse or the danseur.
What would opera do without tales of adultery, murder and revenge?
Opera director Barrie Kosky didn’t like Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” when he first saw it at age 10. Mozart’s Singspiel — a genre of opera characterized by spoken dialogue, along with singing — was a big hit in 1791, and the composer himself goofed around on stage during some of the performances. Ideally, given its broad comedy and fantastical characters, the opera should be able to engage kids.
Ernest Bloch, the renowned 20th century Swiss-born American composer, wrote just one opera, “Macbeth,” and it has rarely been produced in the United States since its 1910 Paris premiere.
An Israeli understudy for the role of Carmen, in the opera being performed at the foot of Masada, was thrust on stage opening night after the star lost her voice in the dry desert air.
When Federico Garcia Lorca was a child, long before his ascension to the heights of Spanish literary circles, he idolized his mother’s gift for playing the piano. The young Garcia Lorca studied piano, hoping that he shared some of his mother’s talent, but Garcia Lorca would never become an influential musician. It was through the pen that he found his voice. Nevertheless, Garcia Lorca’s first works, with titles like “Nocturne” and “Sonata,” drew heavily upon his musical background, and throughout his short life, his poetry and prose would reflect an obsession with music and rhythm, with Beethoven and Chopin. So it seems natural that nearly a century later, a man who was inspired by Garcia Lorca’s words would turn his life into music.