Roberto Devereux

July 5, 2016 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | FILM, MUSIC, Opera, OPERA, THUMBNAIL REVIEWS |

(by Gaetano Donizetti) (Metropolitan Opera, screened July 5, 2016) We’re still not quite sure what to make of this Met rendering of Donizetti’s brilliant little bel canto sweetmeat.  It seems to have been given the Heaven’s Gate treatment.  But there is much to like –  the static set by David McVicar (more Georgian/art nouveau fusion than Elizabethan) provided a sense of stability and economy, serving well as various rooms at Nonsuch Palace (looking a little Hampton Court), The Duke of Nottingham’s digs, the Tower, and as a gallery for the peripheral players.           The Errol Flynn, Bette Davis…

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Their Best Shot

July 4, 2016 | Posted by Lesley Jakobsen | American Politics, FILM, HISTORY, LIFE, Ulalume |

Hamilton by John Trumbull, painted 2 years after the Duel

Alexander Hamilton Elie Wiesel Michael Cimino This 4th of July, we recall Alexander Hamilton, the multi-talented and widely reviled (vide Burr) political figure of the early days of the American Republic, who did as much as anyone to build the various struts of the enormous edifice now creaking and groaning under the weight of history, with Mrs Clinton or Mr Trump poised to kick away the last brace.  What this founding father and first Secretary of the U.S. Treasury would have made of the modern opera now being staged in his name, one can only wonder. Al died in a…

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The Raft of “The Medusa”

July 3, 2016 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | ART, HISTORY |

3 July 1816: the French frigate “The Medusa” founders off Cap Blanc.  Two and a bit years later, Theodore Géricault exhibited his classic romanticist work; a grim and sombre depiction of hope turning to despair, as possible rescue, seen in the distance, fades away. The loss of 150 people in this wreck, and abandonment of some, and evidence of cannibalism by survivors, became a national scandal, and Gericault’s melodramatic treatment did nothing to calm the citizens down.  “This was a great subject, gory and gasp-making.”* [Sue Roe, The Private Lives of the Impressionists, 2006, p. 9.]

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Butterflies Aren’t Free

July 2, 2016 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | Classic Books, WRITING & LITERATURE |

Most famous lepidopterist (photo by Giuseppe Pino)

2 July – A Day of Loss – Vladimir Nabokov (22 April 1899 to 2 July 1977) He was the most luscious wielder of words in our time. Raised in a manner akin to the upbringing of George Amberson Minifer, VN was a precocious prodigy who grew a coat of hard varnish when he lost his home, his inheritance, his country (although he remained fond of Mother Russia, he deprecated her barbaric minions) and, in Berlin, his father (to an assassin’s hand).  He moved around but never really settled and his moorings became his wife and his works. His works are superb….

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Remembering Charles Laughton

July 1, 2016 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | Classic Film, FILM |

1 July 1899 – 15 December 1962 Today we recall the great Charles Laughton, an immense, thick, boiled ham, but top-notch ham none the less.  David Shipman described him as a “big, brazen, show-off actor.  He went overboard sometimes…but as well as the bold, daring gesture – the hallmark of the great actor – he could perform with infinite delicacy.”* He was superb in big-time historical roles, playing Henry VIII, Rembrandt, and Captain Bligh; or in lush, epic sagas such as Les Miserables or The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but he could quite good in comedy as well – see It Started With Eve,…

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