BERLIOZ’S FAILED MOKE CAPER
THIS HEADLINE IS right up there with “Headless Body Found in Topless Bar,” and, what’s more, it’s no less an exaggeration. Nineteenth-century French composer Hector Berlioz came close to pulling … Continue reading
LIFE-CHANGING LINER NOTES/ALBUM COVERS PART 2
YESTERDAY, I BEGAN recollections of LP and CD covers and liner notes residing in my memory. Today in Part 2, we’ll learn more about Switched-On Bach, Handel’s Water Music, and … Continue reading
LIFE-CHANGING LINER NOTES/ALBUM COVERS PART 1
AMONG THE ATTRACTIONS of a traditional LP record album, and to some extent, even a CD jewel case, are the artwork and textural material accompanying the music. Here, in Parts … Continue reading
MOBY-DICK REDUX
IT ISN’T THAT I’VE been ignoring Herman Melville’s saga of Ahab and the White Whale. Despite the fact that I’ve never actually read this epic nineteenth-century novel, SimanaitisSays has discussed … Continue reading
GORE VIDAL’S VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET PART 2
MANY PLAYWRIGHTS PREFACE their dialogue with only brief descriptions of scenes and characters, the interpretation of the production left largely to the director. By contrast, Gore Vidal offered extensive details … Continue reading
GORE VIDAL’S VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET PART 1
“THE PURPOSE OF SATIRE, it has been rightly said,” humorist Michael Flanders observed, “is to strip away the veneer of comfortable illusion and cozy half-truth. And our job, as I … Continue reading
SWORDSMAN, VIOLINIST, CONDUCTOR, COMPOSER, ABOLITIONIST—AND BACK TO THE SWORD
HERE’S A TALE WORTHY of an opera, heightened by the fact that this swordsman/violinist/conductor/composer/abolitionist was the acknowledged son of a wealthy French colonialist and an enslaved African Guadeloupean. I learned … Continue reading
GLAMOUR
I’VE BEEN ENJOYING lots of Turner Classic Movies lately and have become something of a connoisseur of glamor, or as our Brit friends spell it glamour. It probably comes as … Continue reading
PROKOFIEV, THE SOVIETS, AND PLAYBILL
THE WORD “PLAYBILL” is both a generic, an information-filled giveaway to theatergoers, and also Playbill, the monthly magazine, most copies of which are theater- and production-specific. Background. As described in … Continue reading
A META REVIEW—THE WOMEN PART 2
YESTERDAY, WE BEGAN our meta study of a movie review, followed today in Part 2 by a review of a book citing the movie, plus a review of that review. … Continue reading
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