The Bard (College) Summerscape Festival at Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., has gained fame for digging up old operas and breathing new life into them. Dame Ethel Smyth’s 1906 opera, The Wreckers, ended its five-performance run in the magnificent Frank Gehry Theatre on Aug. 2, selling out to full houses. Leon Botstein, the artistic director and conductor of Summerscape, revived … [Read more...]
Letter from Tanglewood: Concert honors American masters
All music was once new. But in America, ever since Serge Koussevitzky founded the Berkshire Music Center on July 8, 1940, in Lenox, Mass., composers and their new music found a home for experimentation and performance. Randall Thompson’s Alleluia was the inaugural piece that balmy summer afternoon at Tanglewood, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in July and August … [Read more...]
Letter from Paris: Après Charlie
By Chloe Elder In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the spirit of solidarity pervades Paris, and the evidence is everywhere. Riding the Métro on the day after the magazine attack, I whipped my head around to see “Je Suis Charlie” written in large spray-painted letters on the walls of the Concorde station. And I continue to see the motto across the city, written on the … [Read more...]
Letter From Paris: The accidental flâneuse
By Chloe Elder In 21st-century society, the onetime symbol of Paris, the flâneur, is nearly extinct. In its native city, the numbers are dangerously low. Conservation efforts have done little to protect those who remain in the wild and all attempts to breed in captivity have been futile. And awkward. The flâneur is one who strolls, wanders, and traverses the city streets … [Read more...]
Letter from Paris: In the footsteps of Hemingway
By Chloe Elder Ah, Paris! (Cue the Edith Piaf.) The City of Lights! The City of Love! The City of Americans? Mais, oui! Many of those chic Parisians strolling around this famous city are, in fact, just Americans who happen to live in Paris. I, too, am just another clichéd example of the American in Paris: an expatriate from Florida who has come looking for life, liberty, … [Read more...]
Letter from Louisville: ‘Gnit’ stands out at Humana new plays festival
LOUISVILLE, Ky. ― Since 1976 ― 37 years, said to be the longest continuous corporate underwriting of the arts ― the Humana Foundation has been funding an annual festival of new American plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville. That means hundreds of world premieres, many of which have subsequent lives in New York ― The Gin Game, Agnes of God, Dinner with Friends, etc. ― or at … [Read more...]
Letter From Los Angeles 3: How I learned to stop hurting myself and get the win-win
Among my friends is a woman who moved here from Boston. Twenty-five years later, she still makes a point of putting Long Beach in her prayers. Our route to lunch often takes us along Alamitos Bay, where snow-capped peaks of purple mountains are a backdrop for the recreational waterway and its iconic red swim buoys. Before anyone picks up a fish taco, my friend thanks God for … [Read more...]
Letter from Los Angeles 2: Freezing for ‘Dexter,’ growing gills for Long Beach
When I walked out the front door of my oceanfront condo in Long Beach and found that Showtime’s Dexter was being filmed there on the beach, I felt like I’d arrived. I got hooked on the series about the serial killer with the heart of gold in 2007 while I was visiting Finland and hatching my first escape plan from Florida. Normally adventurous and independent, I’d tried … [Read more...]
Letter from Los Angeles: A South Florida writer remakes her identity
I moved to Los Angeles a year-and-a-half ago with great hope: for new perspective and new love. After 40 years in South Florida, the new perspective has been great. And the love is still mine, even if the man isn’t. And hope: it springs eternal, right? Back home, I was a hard-working and hard-partying South Florida writer, performer, event producer and educator. Since I’ve … [Read more...]