Louvre’s art experts protest at overcleaned Da Vinci painting by resigning

 art  No Responses »
Dec 292011
 

is facing accus­a­tions that it overcleaned a mas­ter­piece by , leav­ing it with a bright­ness that the Renais­sance mas­ter never inten­ded, repor­ted The Guardian.

Two of France’s top art experts have voiced their protest over the clean­ing of The Vir­gin and Child with Saint Anne – a jewel of west­ern art – by resign­ing from the Paris museum’s advis­ory com­mit­tee respons­ible for its “res­tor­a­tion”, the Guard­ian has learned.

Such was their con­cern for the 500-year-old paint­ing that and Jean-Pierre Cuzin – emin­ent former spe­cial­ists in con­ser­va­tion and paint­ing respect­ively at the Louvre – could no longer asso­ci­ate them­selves with its treatment.

Ber­geon Langle is regarded as France’s national author­ity on the art and the sci­ence of restor­ing paint­ings. She was dir­ector of con­ser­va­tion for all of France’s national museums.

She said:

I can con­firm that I have resigned from the inter­na­tional con­sultat­ive com­mit­tee, but my reas­ons I am reserving for a meet­ing with the president-director of the Louvre, Henri Loyrette.”

via guardian.co.uk… con­tinue reading

Unseen photos: Carla Fracci, Maya Plisetskaya and Natalia Bessmertnova

 ballet, photography  No Responses »
Dec 292011
 

When the vis­ited Milan in 1970, Italian baller­ina , with Teatro alla Scala’s dir­ector Ant­o­nio Ghiringhelli, went to the air­port to wel­come the company.

Here she is, with her son , together with Rus­sian bal­let stars  and , in two pre­vi­ously unpub­lished photos.

Carla Fracci greets Maya Plis­et­skaya while Ant­o­nio Ghir­inghelli looks on:

Nat­alia Bess­mert­nova watches as Maya Plis­et­skaya holds Carla Fracci’s baby Francesco:

… con­tinue reading

Opera director Claudio Del Monaco, son of the famous tenor, stabbed by wife

 Italy, opera  4 Responses »
Dec 292011
 

, the 64 year-old son of tenor , was ser­i­ously injured last night from stab wounds allegedly inflic­ted by his wife. Del Monaco, an dir­ector, and his 35 year-old Ger­man wife Daniela Her­mann, an , were on hol­i­day in , near Venice.

It is assumed that dur­ing  a viol­ent quar­rel Her­mann used a 10 inch (25cm) bread-knife to stab her hus­band four times in the chest. One blow grazed his heart. The police, after being aler­ted by neigh­bours, found Del Monaco face down in the blood-spattered apart­ment. His wife was dis­covered in a nearby piazza in a state of shock. The knife was found nearby and Her­mann had another knife hid­den in the sleeve of her coat. She was also injured with a knife wound near a lung and is now in the local hos­pital. Her hus­band was taken to Tre­viso for emer­gency surgery.

Although the oper­a­tion was suc­cess­ful, Del Monaco remains in an extremely crit­ical con­di­tion.… con­tinue reading

Spumante will beat champagne worldwide on New Year’s Eve

 Italy  No Responses »
Dec 282011
 

Italian spumante will beat French cham­pagne when corks are popped around the world this New Year’s Eve,

The Italian bub­bly is set to edge out its French elder cousin thanks to a record 25% rise in sales in the first 10 months of the year, com­pared to just 3.5% for champagne.

More than 300 mil­lion bottles of spumante will be opened on the night of Decem­ber 31 thanks to growth spurts of 37% in the United States, 25% in the UK and 8% in Ger­many, the lead­ing spumante importer, Col­diretti said.

Among the new lov­ers of Italy’s bub­bly is Rus­sia, fourth in the import stand­ings with a record rise of 40%.

via ANSA.it… con­tinue reading

Cheetah, chimpanzee star of Tarzan films, dies in Florida at 80

 obituary  No Responses »
Dec 282011
 

A chim­pan­zee who starred in Tar­zan films in the 1930s has died at the age of 80, accord­ing to the sanc­tu­ary where he lived. The Sun­coast Prim­ate Sanc­tu­ary in Palm Har­bor said he died on Sat­urday of kid­ney fail­ure. He had acted along­side Johnny Weiss­muller and Maur­een O’Sullivan in Tar­zan films from 1932–34. The animal loved fin­ger­paint­ing and watch­ing foot­ball, and was “soothed by Christian music”.

Sanc­tu­ary spokes­wo­man Debbie Cobb told the Tampa Tribune that Chee­tah came to live at Palm Har­bor from Johnny Weissmuller’s estate in about 1960. Chimpanzees in zoos typ­ic­ally live 35 to 45 years, she said. It is not clear what lay behind Cheetah’s longev­ity, or what evid­ence there is for it.

via BBC News… con­tinue reading

Gramilano Questionnaire… Dancers’ Edition: Paul Chalmer

 questionnaire  No Responses »
Dec 272011
 

Born in Ott­awa, Canada, in 1962, Chalmer stud­ied at the National Bal­let School of Canada with Betty Oliphant, Daniel Seil­lier, Erik Bruhn and Ser­giu Stefan­sci. He danced the role of Albrecht in “Gis­elle” at his gradu­ation per­form­ance and joined the National Bal­let of Canada. His admir­a­tion for  the bal­lets of cho­reo­grapher John Cranko were the motiv­a­tion to leave Canada and join the Stut­tgart Bal­let in 1980. He became soloist there in 1983 and danced many lead­ing roles in the company’s rep­er­toire. In 1985 he joined Les Bal­lets de Monte Carlo as Dan­seur Etoile and part­ner of baller­ina Ghis­laine Thesmar. Chalmer has danced as a Guest Artist  with The Eng­lish National Bal­let, The Birm­ing­ham Royal Bal­let, The Scot­tish Bal­let, The Lon­don City Bal­let, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Teatro dell’ di Roma and at , Milan.

His rep­er­toire included the import­ant lead­ing clas­sical roles such as Romeo in “Romeo and Juliet”, Siegfried in “Swan Lake”, Prince Désiré in “The Sleep­ing Beauty”, James in “La Sylphide”, Albrecht in “Gis­elle”, Lenski and the title role in Cranko’s “One­gin” and the Prince in “The Nutcracker”.… con­tinue reading

The Merce Cunningham Company: dancing right up to the end

 dance  No Responses »
Dec 272011
 

It has been an exten­ded and unpre­ced­en­ted count­down for the dan­cers and staff of the Merce Cun­ning­ham Dance Com­pany, said the Los Angeles Times. Never before has a modern-dance troupe planned for its own demise. But then Cun­ning­ham, one of the sin­gu­lar innov­at­ors in his field, who remained forward-looking and boldly cre­at­ive until his 2009 death at age 90 — was always tak­ing the lead, pion­eer­ing invent­ive, unex­pec­ted approaches.

The intens­ive two-year world tour cul­min­ates this week with six Events at Manhattan’s Park Avenue Armory.

The per­form­ances were planned by Cun­ning­ham as a global cel­eb­ra­tion and farewell. The armory, with its 55,000-square-foot drill hall, was his choice for his company’s final per­form­ance in its home city, and he stip­u­lated the $10 ticket price. The dan­cing will unfold on three stages and, true to form, will fea­ture newly com­mis­sioned music and ori­ginal décor by Daniel Arsham.

These two years seemed like a gift.

… con­tinue reading

Apple fined 900,000 euros by Italian anti-trust authority

 Italy, technology  No Responses »
Dec 272011
 

Italy’s anti-trust author­ity has fined Apple 900,000 euros for allegedly unfair com­mer­cial prac­tices that hurt con­sumers, the author­ity said earlier today.

An anti­trust probe found that Apple com­pan­ies oper­at­ing in Italy “did not fully apply” a two-year war­ranty for consumers. The invest­ig­a­tion also uncovered “insuf­fi­ciently clear inform­a­tion” on the cov­er­age of extra ser­vices by the com­puter giant, the authority added.

Apple’s Italian sub­si­di­ar­ies did not imme­di­ately respond to news of the fine.

via ANSA.it… con­tinue reading

Opera singer rescues pigeon who aimed droppings at NYPD

 opera  No Responses »
Dec 272011
 

A pigeon, who was the men­ace of police officers and tour­ists at the 9/11 Memorial, has been adop­ted by an who is chan­ging his rude behaviour.

Jen­nifer Dud­ley is a mezzo-soprano at the Met­ro­pol­itan and City operas in New York but also works as a wild­life res­cuer in the city. After watch­ing Fred the pigeon on his favour­ite perch in lower Man­hat­tan, she real­ised his bad-tempered ways were caused by an infection. She spent ten days try­ing to catch him and finally got lucky last Tuesday.

Ms Dud­ley said that des­pite his bad atti­tude, he was beloved by New Yorkers. “He’s got a bit of chutzpah”, she told the New York Post

via Mail Online… con­tinue reading

 Older Entries

Switch to our mobile site