April 10

The big news in the opera world of late has been the sudden departure of conductor Leonard Slatkin after a single performance of Verdi's La Traviata at the Metropolitan Opera -- a performance which got one of the worst sets of reviews I've ever read for an operatic opening night. Mark Swed at the Los Angeles Times  gives an excellent account of what happened and explains why Slatkin may be the fall guy here:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/04/its-time-to-cut-slatkin-some-slack.html 

In the world of performances that go better than this Verdi debacle, it is delightful to read of a spectacular concert version of Stephen Sondheim's Anyone Can Whistle with a killer cast-- Donna Murphy, Sutton Foster, and Raul Esparza.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/10/theater/reviews/10anyone.html

Deborah Eisenberg at The New York Review of Books reviews a new translation of the novel Skylark by the early 20th century Hungarian writer Dezso Kosztolanyi (1885-1936) -- one of the numerous world authors of the seminal 1850-1950 era who are ever so gradually being rediscovered in English (it tends to happen faster in French and German, languages in which translations from "minor literatures" are much more common). We will never be done with that feast.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23788

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dezs%C5%91_Kosztol%C3%A1nyi

AbeBooks has put together another engaging list, of top "train thrillers"  -- nothing wrong with a group that includes Patricia Highsmith, Graham Greene, Christopher Isherwood, and Emile Zola!

http://www.abebooks.com/books/railways-stations-orient-express/train-thrillers.shtml?cm_mmc=nl-_-nl-_-h00-trainsA-_-01cta

Steve Donoghue takes a break from reading16th century poets to ponder modern action heroes:

http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/stevereads/2010/04/the-perils-of-pessmissism-in-the-penny-press/

Sometime action hero Richard Basehart was a terrifically versatile actor (whose talent sent the robot Gypsy on Mystery Science Theater 3000 into paroxysms of appreciation):

http://www.cinemaretro.com/index.php?/archives/4521-REFLECTIONS-ON-THE-LIFE-AND-CAREER-OF-RICHARD-BASEHART.html

I am paying a great compliment to the Romanian painter Szabolcs Veres when I say that his "portraits" disturb me in a way that I associate with Francis Bacon:

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=37360

http://www.spencerbrownstonegallery.com/Artists/Veres_Szabolcs/Veres_Szabolcs.html

In lighter vein, this clip of Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong from High Society proves that white boys got soul, too (catch those arm movements):



I've always believed that the entertainment world helped, slowly but surely, in leading the way to racial integration, because in the republic of talent, color is scarcely the paramount characteristic. A musician who wouldn't want to perform with Louis Armstrong -- who wouldn't be honored merely to be thought worthy of it -- would not just be a racist musician, but a goddamn stupid musician. Bing Crosby was not stupid.

Among notables born on this date are journalists Joseph Pulitzer, David Halberstam, and Claudio Magris (Italy), essayist William Hazlitt, playwright Claire Boothe Luce, scholar Montague Summers, philosopher Hugo Grotius, novelists Paul Theroux, Anne Lamott, and Stefan Heym (Germany), poet Bella Akhmadulina (Russia), sportscaster John Madden, composer Eugen d'Albert, violinist Yefim Bronfman, jazzman Claude Bolling, rocker Brian Setzer, exotica musician Martin Denny, painter Kenneth Noland, naval commander Matthew C. Perry, and actors George Arliss, Max von Sydow, Omar Sharif, and Harry Morgan.

I mentioned back on July 18, 2009, that I took a course on "Television News in America" from Tom Brokaw while I was at Yale, and that a highlight of the semester was our day-long class trip to New York. After watching the production of the Today show in the morning, we had a few hours of seminar sessions at NBC headquarters, and the great David Halberstam led one of them. He followed a youngish NBC producer whose name I have happily forgotten, who seemed annoyed to have been roped in by Brokaw, and spewed non-stop cynicism at us for some uncomfortable minutes, along the lines "There is no place for you in this industry, you have nothing to contribute to journalism, etc." Tom was visibly embarrassed by this performance; maybe the guy was just having a bad day. In any case, Halberstam was also in the room, awaiting his turn to speak to our small group, and since I was seated near him I quickly got the sense that he was trying to control himself. Ultimately he couldn't, and he broke in on Mr. Young Hot Shot "Pull Up the Ladder Behind Me" Producer, "I think you are doing these young people a real disservice....Of course, they have something to offer, and the world of journalism will always need their energy and passion." I will never forget it; it was electrifying. Halberstam then held forth for one of the most inspiring hours of my life on how we could not only make a difference, but were called upon by our talents and our privileged position to do nothing less. There was not an ounce of cynicism in the man who had written about the failures of the "best and the brightest," and who would have had every justification for being deeply cynical. No, there was only the passion for betterment that he generously called on us to share. Every now and then, famous people don't disappoint you.