close Video College student details professors attack on anti-abortion display CUNY Hunter College student Patrick Rubi joined ‘The Ingraham Angle’ to discuss a professor messing up a pro-life display because it triggered her students. The union that represents staff at the City University of New York distanced itself from former Hunter College Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art Shellyne Rodriguez after the embattled educator threatened a reporter with a machete. A spokesperson for the union, PSC, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that it "does not condone violence" when asked to comment on the incident, but added that it also does not "comment on members’ ongoing disciplinary proceedings." "The union has not released or endorsed any statement regarding any incidents involving Professor Shellyne Rodriguez," the spokesperson said. The remarks stand in stark contrast to a petition that appeared on the union's website just days after … [Read more...] about Union backtracks, axes petition after professor threatens reporter with machete
Philippe petit
Ivo van Hove’s ‘Don Giovanni’ Will Be Shared by Paris and the Met
A new production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” directed by Ivo van Hove, who has led fierce Broadway stagings of “A View From the Bridge” and “The Crucible,” will be a highlight of the Paris Opera’s ambitious 2018-19 season, announced late Monday. A co-production with the Metropolitan Opera, the “Don Giovanni” is part of a broad celebration of the company’s 350th anniversary — the season’s slogan is “Modern Since 1669” — and the 30th birthday of the larger of its two theaters, the Opéra Bastille. French works will be a focus, including Berlioz’s “Les Troyens” (directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov, with Elina Garanca and Bryan Hymel); Rameau’s opera-ballet “Les Indes Galantes” (staged by the film director Clément Cogitore); and Meyerbeer’s “Les Huguenots” (directed by Andreas Kriegenburg, with Diana Damrau and Mr. Hymel). A new opera, “Bérénice,” composed by Michael Jarrell and based on Racine, will star Barbara Hannigan and be staged by Claus Guth. Other highlights of the director-driven … [Read more...] about Ivo van Hove’s ‘Don Giovanni’ Will Be Shared by Paris and the Met
Review: A Starry ‘Don Carlos’ Brings Verdi, in French, to Paris
PARIS — What a difference a letter makes. One of Verdi’s greatest works is best known in its Italian translation as “Don Carlo,” but he originally wrote the opera’s music to a French libretto, “Don Carlos.” While the music remains the same, the mood feels subtly yet completely altered. In a wrenching duet with Carlos — who was first her fiancé, then, sigh, her stepson — Élisabeth, the miserable queen of Spain, begs him to know her heart is not indifferent, to understand her silence. In Italian the word is “silenzio,” capped with a broad, extroverted “oh” sound. But in French, it’s “silence,” with a soft, gentle “eh” at the end. Language becomes emotion in the voice of an artist like the soprano Sonya Yoncheva , who sings Élisabeth, for her first time in either language, in a starry yet sober new production of “Don Carlos” that had its premiere at the Opéra Bastille on Tuesday. While Ms. Yoncheva didn’t dwell on that not-quite-syllable at the end of “silence,” she used it — to … [Read more...] about Review: A Starry ‘Don Carlos’ Brings Verdi, in French, to Paris
An All-but-Extinct Piano Plays Once More
When a recording of forgotten music on a forgotten instrument appears on the prestigious ECM label , chances are good that something ear-opening has been exhumed from the graveyard of history. On his latest release for ECM’s New Series, the Russian pianist Alexei Lubimov performs music of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-88) on the all-but-extinct Tangentenflügel (tangent piano), offering the listener a double oddity: a rarely heard composer interpreted on a rarely heard instrument. The tangent piano represents a broken branch in the genealogy of the piano. It was produced in the second half of the 18th century alongside the fortepiano, the immediate ancestor of today’s pianoforte. As early as 1751, Franz Jacob Späth, a builder of clavichords, fortepianos and organs, was producing tangent pianos in Regensburg, Germany, assisted later by his son-in-law and partner, Christoph Friedrich Schmahl. Fewer than 20 examples, fragile and temperamental, survive. The tangent … [Read more...] about An All-but-Extinct Piano Plays Once More
Review: At Carnegie, Going Beyond the Rapid-Fire Vivaldi
Slow, serene, more floating than furious: A Vivaldi concert at Weill Recital Hall on Thursday began in decidedly un-Vivaldian style. Or at least the “molto allegro” style with which this composer is often associated. Of course he created much more than high spirits and rapid-fire coloratura, and a broad range of his artistry was on display on Thursday, when the young early-music ensemble Jupiter made a delightful debut in Carnegie Hall’s intimate Weill space. Founded in 2018 by the lutenist Thomas Dunford , Jupiter is based in France but encompasses a shifting confederation of artists from all over. At Weill, the group was an octet, with Dunford joined by Rachell Ellen Wong and Augusta McKay Lodge, violins; Manami Mizumoto, viola; Bruno Philippe, cello; Douglas Balliett, bass; and Tom Foster, harpsichord and organ. And, last but hardly least, the mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre, a rising opera star still in her 20s. Her clarinet-mellow voice provided the spine of the evening in … [Read more...] about Review: At Carnegie, Going Beyond the Rapid-Fire Vivaldi
‘Lynch/Oz’ Review: The Yellow Brick Road to ‘Blue Velvet’
The novelist J.G. Ballard once observed that David Lynch’s 1986 freakout “Blue Velvet” is “‘The Wizard of Oz’ reshot with a script by Kafka and décor by Francis Bacon.” Lynch-lovers have long known that the filmmaker has a thing for “Oz” and its alternative realities: In “Blue Velvet,” a tragic woman named Dorothy wears red shoes; in Lynch’s “Wild at Heart” (1990), a Good Witch floats down from the sky in a bubble-gum pink orb à la Oz’s Glinda. “If you’re truly wild at heart,” the Good Witch announces to the film’s ultraviolent hero, “you’ll fight for your dreams” — advice that sounds like a statement of Lynchian artistic belief. In his frustrating documentary “Lynch/Oz,” the writer-director Alexandre O. Philippe explores with scattershot results how “The Wizard of Oz” figures into Lynch’s oeuvre. Divided into six chapters narrated and “hosted” (as the credits put it) by some half-dozen individual contributors, the movie is effectively an auteurist study in a boosterish key. (The … [Read more...] about ‘Lynch/Oz’ Review: The Yellow Brick Road to ‘Blue Velvet’