Josep Carreras and second wife separate

 opera  No Responses »
Nov 302011
 

The tenor Jose Car­reras has con­firmed the news: he has sep­ar­ated from his second wife , the air host­ess . Rumours have been around for some days, so the couple cla­ri­fied their position:

“Given the interest shown in the media, we have decided to report that we are start­ing divorce pro­ceed­ings by mutual con­sent. Our rela­tion­ship is, and will be in the future, char­ac­ter­ised by respect, affec­tion and friend­ship. Out of respect for our pri­vacy and that of our fam­il­ies, we decline the kind offer from the media to com­ment on the mat­ter… we appre­ci­ate the interest and the affection shown,

Yours faith­fully,

and Jutta Maria Jäger “.

Car­reras, who is about to turn 65, and his wife have been mar­ried for five years. For both were this was a second marriage .

via EL PAÍS… con­tinue reading

Amy Winehouse dress fetches $68,000 at auction

 fashion  No Responses »
Nov 302011
 

A prin­ted chif­fon dress worn by the late singer for the cover of her chart-topping album “Back to Black” has sold for £43,200 ($68,000) at auction.

The ham­mer price was well above pre-sale estim­ates of £10–20,000 pounds. Proceeds from the Disaya-designed dress will go to the , a char­ity set up by her father Mitch to help young people strug­gling with ill health, poverty or addiction.

via Reu­ters… con­tinue reading

Meryl Streep named best actress by New York critics

 awards, cinema  No Responses »
Nov 302011
 

was named best act­ress by the New York Film Crit­ics Circle for her por­trayal of in the forth­com­ing film The .

The film includes scenes from Lady Thatcher’s child­hood up to the present day, and por­trays the price she paid for power. The award from New York was Streep’s fourth best act­ress win from the crit­ics’ group.… con­tinue reading

Nanni Moretti’s Habemus Papam (We Have a Pope) opens in the UK

 cinema, Italy  No Responses »
Nov 302011
 

Left-wing Italian film-maker, Nanni Mor­etti, has attacked many insti­tu­tions in his time: his 2006 film The Cai­man laid in to Ber­lusconi. Not a sur­prise then that the Cath­olic Church would even­tu­ally be a tar­get, though with  he hasn’t gone in for the kill, only stirred things up a little with this com­edy which has not upset the church too much.

The Daily Tele­graph commented,

We Have a is based on a delight­fully witty premise. It has drawn mild dis­ap­proval from the , along the lines that the film does not rep­res­ent the real church.

That is not a cri­ti­cism. You are thank­ing me. You must be thank­ing me, for not depict­ing the real church.”

respon­ded Moretti.

The film centres on the elec­tion of a new Pope. The car­din­als are all in the Sis­tine Chapel but no-one wants the job. 85 year-old French actor  plays Melville, the chosen one, who panics.

… con­tinue reading

UNESCO agrees to help Italy restore Pompeii

 other  No Responses »
Nov 302011
 

The United Nations cul­tural agency and the Italian gov­ern­ment have agreed to join forces to restore rain-damaged Pom­peii. said it would work with over the next nine months to rebuild vil­las and other parts of the famed Roman site that have col­lapsed over the last year.

Under the deal, UNESCO will provide expert advice to the Italian gov­ern­ment on how to upgrade conservation. UNESCO’s assist­ant director-general for cul­ture, Francesco Bandarin, said the pro­ject would be a “com­plex endeavour”.

Last Novem­ber there was a col­lapse in the House of the Gla­di­at­ors which drew cri­ti­cism from UNESCO and the European Union. It was fol­lowed soon after by a col­lapse at the famed House of the Mor­al­ist, spur­ring fur­ther cri­ti­cism from inter­na­tional con­ser­va­tion groups. Last month there were another three minor cave-ins, includ­ing one at the House of Diomedes, after a fresh bout of heavy rain. There was also an out­cry when an eight-square metre sec­tion of a wall fell near the Nola Gate.… con­tinue reading

Ken Russell dies at 84

 cinema, obituary  1 Response »
Nov 282011
 

Ken Rus­sell, the Brit­ish dir­ector of “Women in Love” and “”, has died at the age of 84. In a state­ment his wife said,

It was com­pletely unexpected. He had recently agreed to dir­ect the fea­ture film Alice In Won­der­land The Musical and he was work­ing on the script and cast­ing of that.”

Rus­sell began his dir­ect­ing career with the and went on to make some of the most con­tro­ver­sial and viol­ent films of the 1960s and 70s.

Rus­sell caused a stir with many of his movies. In his 1969 adapt­a­tion of D.H. Lawrence’s “Women in Love,” he included a nude wrest­ling scene between Oliver Reed and Alan Bates that shocked viewers.

I know my films upset people. I want to upset people,” he once said.

The film, though, earned Rus­sell an Oscar nom­in­a­tion for best dir­ector, and Glenda Jack­son won a statuette for best actress.

Jack­son cri­ti­cized the Brit­ish film industry for turn­ing its back on the mav­er­ick tal­ent.… con­tinue reading

Priscilla Queen of the Desert kicks off its heels in Milan

 Italy, musical theatre  No Responses »
Nov 272011
 

“Every con­ceiv­able sur­face has been decked with sequins, spattered with col­oured lights, plastered in mirrored chips or trimmed in feath­ers and fringe in “,” said the New York Times, and it will be the same pro­duc­tion which comes in to in two weeks’ time.

Movie

The Adven­tures of , Queen of the Desert is one of the most suc­cess­ful Aus­tralian movies of all time. Shot almost entirely on loc­a­tion in just six weeks and on a tiny budget, it called for almost guerrilla-style film­mak­ing. Loc­als were pulled off the street to be extras, cos­tumes were held together with glue, loc­a­tions were secured at the last minute and cast and crew battled with both the flies and the heat of the desert. No one really knew what they were making.

The first time that writer  saw Priscilla pro­jec­ted onto a screen was at a sur­prise screen­ing at the 1994 San Fran­cisco Film Fest­ival.… con­tinue reading

Pacific Northwest Ballet’s conductor on the best ballet orchestra in the US

 ballet, music  No Responses »
Nov 272011
 

’s con­ductor, , talked to The Sun­Break:

On bal­let

“What I love about bal­let is the col­lab­or­a­tion between the dan­cers and the music. The con­ductor and the com­pany mem­bers have to work together extremely closely. I have to learn the steps (that they are dan­cing), but it’s most import­ant to get to know the people dan­cing. It’s so per­sonal. Sing­ers use part of their bod­ies as their instru­ment, but in dance, the entire body is the instru­ment. The con­ductor holds a great deal of power. To be a good col­lab­or­ator, the dan­cers have to trust you impli­citly to look out for their interests; to help them if they are in trouble, to sup­port them in their exuber­ance. It’s the inter­ming­ling that takes time.”

On the Pacific North­w­est Bal­let and

“It’s the best bal­let orches­tra in the country. I’ve con­duc­ted all the bal­let orches­tras. There’s a love and com­mit­ment, a focus and care to what the PNB play­ers do, and they take great pride in it.… con­tinue reading

The Sunday Times cheers Liam Scarlett’s ballet Asphodel Meadows

 ballet  No Responses »
Nov 272011
 

When the young cho­reo­grapher Liam Scar­lett premiered his first main-stage work for the Royal Bal­let last year, on a mod­ern pro­gramme, it scored a tri­umphant suc­cess. Now, at its first revival in the com­pany of his­toric bal­lets by and , his accom­plish­ment is not one jot dimin­ished. He took on a dazzling score in Poulenc’s Double Piano Con­certo, a tour de force of shift­ing moods and idioms, and matched it with invent­ively shaped duets — a dif­fer­ent couple for each of the three move­ments — inter­woven with dances for a corps of 14. There isn’t a single sequence that isn’t fascinating.

Last week­end, both of last year’s casts were seen on the same day, both excel­lent. But the even­ing sex­tet, on whom Scar­lett cre­ated his bal­let, seemed to me to carry a spe­cial “right­ness”: Mari­anela Nuñez and Rupert Pen­nefather sen­su­ously, beau­ti­fully paired in the first move­ment; and twinned at the speed of light in the last; and, in the middle, Tamara Rojo and , subtle in dance that tan­tal­ises with some emo­tional back story.… con­tinue reading

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