The first opera production I ever saw was a Franco Zeffirelli production. As was the one after that. And the one after that.
If you started going to the Metropolitan Opera in the ’80s or ’90s, chances are that Mr. Zeffirelli’s work was the first thing you saw. After all, he directed the classic introductory Read More
On a September evening of the late aughts, Karita Mattila was singing in Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.
Fifty years from now, the next Edith Wharton, if she could have seen the crowd that gathered to see Ms. Mattila on the evening of Sept. 21, 2009, could easily begin her great Read More
On cabaret stages and movie screens, the New York ozone has suddenly been invaded by the sounds of music, and applause for the people who made it happen. It’s a coincidence I can live with. Two more polarized musical icons than Maria Callas and Ray Charles would be unimaginable, yet here they are in Technicolor, Read More
“If your agent’s Binky, then you’re doing O.K.,” said Gerard Jones, a 60-year-old Ashland, Ore., writer. He was referring, of course, to International Creative Management literary agent Amanda (Binky) Urban, who does not represent Mr. Jones, but nonetheless tops his subjective and cranky index to the publishing industry, Everyonewhosanyone.com, which has New York’s literary types Read More
Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run combines pleasingly postmodern kinetic energy with exquisitely lyrical romanticism that creeps up on you–even as punk carrot-topped Lola (Franka Potente) runs nonstop through the streets of Berlin to save the life of her drug-dealing boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) after he has botched an exchange of narcotics for money. This isn’t Read More
Cher, Judi, Lily Face Il Duce
A quintet of wonderful actresses, a richly evocative story set among the frescoes and Renaissance sculptures of Florence on the brink of World War II, and a chapter from the autobiographical memoirs of distinguished filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli, add up to an uncommonly rapturous cinematic experience in Tea With Mussolini Read More
