Impressions of Die Walküre
Josef Hoffman design for Act I, 1876
Richard Wagner Society, 3 April 2016 The Society had a lovely afternoon discussing ‘Visions of Die Walküre,‘ when Wagner enthusiasts spoke of varied productions across the map, and three distinguished speakers (plus yours truly) gave some formal shape to the issues. Neville Hannaford reviewed leading recordings, from the Chereau/Boulez centenary production at Bayreuth to the visually impressive (albeit quirky – Hunding’s hut is represented as a circle of stones) but weakly-acted Valencia offering. He selected Bayreuth as the best naturalistic version, featuring the best Siegmund (Peter Hoffman) and Hunding (a formidable Matti Salminen, who also appeared at Valencia). …
Continue Reading →Nicola Kemp
We learned of fledgling artist, Nicola Kemp, from an article by Liz Walsh in the 31/3/16 Adelaide “Advertiser.” The following autobiographical detail is drawn or quoted from material kindly supplied by Nicola’s mother, Naomi Blacker. Nicola was born in 1999 in Port Lincoln, South Australia, the younger of two girls. She was diagnosed as dyslexic when she was ten. Nicola and her family regard her struggle with that difficulty as a substantial contributing factor to her artistic success. “The constant battle with school and the soul-destroying constant of failure is what drove Nicola to find her passion and devote hours to it at a young age. In her case it was the twin topics…
Continue Reading →Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid (courtesy Knight Foundation)
(31 October 1950 – 31 March 2016) Zaha Hadid ‘s fluid designs were expensive to make, hard to sell and memorable, once finished. Whilst not really our cup of tea, her work – which might have been more extensive but for her refusal to compromise – constitutes an important and largely successful feature of modern architecture, particularly in her public buildings, which vindicate her 30 year struggle against ‘nice’, neat, square construction.
Continue Reading →Funny Farm
(Dir. George Roy Hill) (1988) This low level, cheesy comedy is actually pretty funny, with nice performances by Chevy Chase and Madolyn Smith as New Yorkers undertaking a sea change. The main reason we love it is the idea of moving from a nice NY apartment to ‘Redbud’ to write an “action-comedy-adventure” called The Big Heist. Andy Farmer (Chevy Chase) sits in his ‘writing room’ and types “The” (after doing the title and chapter pages – it’s a bit like Monty Python’s ‘Novel Writing’) and there’s a priceless anniversary scene where Chevy presents the first few chapters of The Big Heist. Poor Mrs…
Continue Reading →Money (L’Argent) by Emile Zola
The Pope in Jerusalem
As Zola’s The Masterpiece (reviewed here) is about art, the subject of Money is money, money, money, filthy lucre and all that. Aristide Rougon (known somewhat mysteriously as Saccard) loves the stuff. Saccard is an unscrupulous financier, rapist and fantasist who would sell his soul (again) to recapture his lost fortune and rule the Bourse (the nineteenth century French stockmarket). He lives in the house of the widowed Princess d’Orviedo, who is busy deliberately impoverishing herself by pouring her money into ludicrously luxurious and pointless charitable works…”intent on being true to the vow she had made to give all her millions back to the poor, without ever again earning…
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