Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:42:17 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Patrick Giles :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Patrick+Giles istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/arts/celebrating-the-poetry-of-silent-films/17653/ Wed, 27 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST Buster Keaton took ordinary movements and events - a guy luckless in love, or getting into the wrong place at the wrong time - and worked them into a comic and stylistic purity that for one decade, the 1920s, was almost unmatchable. He turned out dozens of films in which his beautiful but inscrutable face confronted the speeded-up America of the new century, and, most often, ran from it as from a falling house. In Keaton's world, houses do fall on him, just as hordes of distraught wannabe... PATRICK GILESITCH http://www.nysun.com/arts/chance-to-scratch-that-50-year-itch/17396/ Fri, 22 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST America's fascination with Marilyn Monroe is half a century old, for it was "The Seven Year Itch," a 1955 comedy about a Big Apple summer full of heat and temptation, that made this insecure yet driven and dazzling model-actress a star - one that has still not been dimmed into obsolescence. For the next week, New Yorkers can escape summer doldrums by watching this comedy about the dangers that ensue when one New Yorker tries too hard to beat the heat - and pitches himself into a fantasy that... PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/arts/theres-more-where-that-came-from-2005-06-24/15995/ Fri, 24 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST "My goodness, what beautiful diamonds!" "Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie." This famous exchange, between an envious hat-check attendant and a Gotham good-time girl played, with typical hieroglyphic panache, by Mae West, is from "Night After Night," a 1932 production from Paramount Pictures. The wisecrack, the actress, and the plot - a socially ambitious speakeasy owner discovers that the upwardly mobile suffer from heavier constraints than just gravity - typifies a time in American... PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/arts/lift-every-voice-sing/15614/ Fri, 17 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST As I learned several years ago, when I was living on Sugar Hill in Harlem, even the hottest summer mornings can't stand up to the magical harmonic balm of a church choir. On Sundays the city rings with music missed by too many who sleep off their Saturday-night revelries, and it's a safe bet the air is seldom less charmed than by the strains of any of the seven principal choirs of Convent Avenue Baptist Church, at 420 W. 145th Street (www.conventchurch.org). "We know there are many ways to come... PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/arts/semele-sings-anyway/15006/ Tue, 7 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST The fates didn't favor the Choral Symphony Society's performance of George Friedrich Handel's 1744 oratorio "Semele" at Christ & St. Stephen's Church yesterday afternoon. Its conductor, David Labovitz, fell ill and was unable to appear. Yet the society chose to go ahead with the performance. Thanks to the performers' dedication and courage, some of the magic of this extraordinary, seldom-heard work came through on Sunday. The libretto of "Semele," after Congreve, bristles with a sexual... PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/arts/untarnished-icon/13603/ Tue, 10 May 2005 00:00:00 EST "James Dean was an unusual selection for 'American Masters,'" explained Susan Lacey, who created the popular PBS biography-based series of the greatest artistic figures this country has offered. "We try to look at people whose body of work really changed our culture. But Dean made only three films - 'East of Eden,' 'Rebel Without a Cause,' and 'Giant' - and he died 50 years ago, before two of them were even released. Yet he has remained absolutely central to our imagination. So how do you do... Patrick Giles http://www.nysun.com/arts/master-class/13605/ Tue, 10 May 2005 00:00:00 EST This season offers new and old evidence of the vitality of "American Masters," which resides in the scope of its attention and the intelligence and honesty it knows subjects of such brilliance deserve. A premiere life of Willa Cather (September 7) will be followed by a long-awaited treatment of one of the most contentious of American writing lives, Ernest Hemingway (September 14). This June the subjects are mostly musical - a charming life of Ella Fitzgerald (June 1), followed by one on Gene... PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/arts/devil-as-a-normal-guy/12407/ Mon, 18 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EST If there is a key to the force and clarity of Rene Pape's singing and acting, it's this: His life has a place for music and drama - and a place for everything else. "I love my work, my singing," explained the 40-year-old Dresden bass after a rehearsal below the vast Metropolitan Opera Stage for the company's new production of "Faust," opening Thursday night. Mr. Pape plays Mephistopheles (he is also moonlighting as the Speaker in the Met's Julie Taymor-designed "Zauberflote.") "Yet I never... PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/arts/deeper-darker-truer-america/11250/ Mon, 28 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST It was 95 years ago that the Metropolitan Opera Company pulled out all PR stops to prepare the public for the world premiere of "The Girl of the Golden West," billed as "An American Opera." No one seemed to mind that label then, except for the work's composer - the Italian Giacomo Puccini. Arriving in New York in the fall of 1910 for rehearsals, the "American Opera" line so upset him he demanded the billboards carrying it be changed. Yet his opera, "La Fanciulla del West" in its original... Patrick Giles http://www.nysun.com/arts/sondheim-at-75/11166/ Fri, 25 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST The publicity photographs for "West Side Story," taken at rehearsals during the summer of 1957, show Stephen Sondheim as a nervous but hopeful-looking young lyricist in a pale jacket, standing next to three of his collaborators and Broadway's heaviest hitters: librettist Arthur Laurents, choreographer/director Jerome Robbins, and composer Leonard Bernstein. This was the moment of Mr. Sondheim's astonishingly quick ascension to the top of the art form he had dedicated himself to. He has been... PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/arts/baroque-american-idol/10811/ Fri, 18 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST Le Jardin des Voix ("garden of voices") is a biennial international competition intent on finding, training, and showcasing the best voices for Baroque music emerging from the world's conservatories. You could call it a classical music "American Idol." How this ideal manifests itself in performance became clear Wednesday night, when the seven prizewinners sang Luigi Rossi's "Spargeti sospiri" ("Shed Your Sighs"). Their conductor, William Christie, instigator and prime mover of Le Jardin des... PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/arts/william-christies-next-act/10531/ Mon, 14 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST A few years ago, William Christie paused during an interview about his latest opera production (Monteverdi's "Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria," then having a triumphant run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music), to declare he was hard at work on a new project, Les Jardins des Voix. Singers in the last stages of university training were being auditioned all over the world to participate in a "Baroque boot camp" under his direction. Why, I asked, would someone so overworked, with so many operas still... PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/arts/city-operas-golden-opportunity/9898/ Tue, 1 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST The New York City Opera has always been less a business operation than a social and cultural mission. The company has long had a reputation for featuring operas seldom (or never) heard in New York and bringing exciting young talents (often American born and trained) to public attention. But once it was the largest, loudest, pluckiest of several city arts groups that believed passionately in the democratization of the arts. The city's other opera house, the Metropolitan, owed its existence to... PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/arts/smash-hit-seeks-opera-company/9232/ Tue, 15 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST From one of the last overlooked corners of opera's past - opera comique, the irreverent answer to the lavish Baroque court music of Lully and Rameau - the American Symphony Orchestra has unearthed a jewel. Emmanuel Chabrier's "Le roi malgre lui" ("The King in Spite of Himself") is a sarcastic, extravagant, romantic treat. Even in France, this work is seldom staged, more often given in concert form (as it was here). Despite good reviews and appreciative audiences, it has failed since its 1887... PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/arts/pellas-like-never-before/7848/ Tue, 18 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EST When the curtain goes up Wednesday and Friday on L'Opera Francais de New York's production of Claude Debussy's only opera, "Pelléas et Melisande," much will seem as it usually does. Golaud, the knight whom hunting has driven too far into a dark forest, will discover a cowering young woman unable to convey much more than sheer terror, and he will attempt to take care of her. Despite her pleas to be left alone, they will go off together and join his father and brother, with results that are... PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/victoria-de-los-angeles-81-spanish-soprano-sang/7764/ Mon, 17 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EST Everything about Victoria de los Angeles, Spain's greatest classical singer, who died on Saturday in Barcelona, was one-of-a-kind - starting with her name. In full, it was Victoria de los Angeles Lopez Garcia, and it wasn't arrived at easily, as the singer herself explained. "The de los Angeles comes from my mother's brother Angel, who was also my godfather. There were problems with the name, actually. You see, Maria de los Angeles was a common name, and quite acceptable to the powers that be... PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/arts/to-glorify-the-ages/7790/ Mon, 17 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EST From nearly half a millennium away, the prayers, lamentations, and glorias of Thomas Tallis (who was probably born in 1505) resound with a persuasive fervor that can lead contemporary listeners to call into question who we are and what we believe (or want to believe).Tallis lived a more complex faith than ours, one tested - perhaps thwarted - by the ruptures of religion and history. And you can hear it in his works. "I have never placed my hope in any other than you, O God of Israel," begins an... PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/arts/god-given-voice-a-life-devoted-to-opera/6571/ Tue, 21 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST Listening to Renata Tebaldi's voice for the first time is a startling experience. I first heard it more than 20 years ago, while shopping for Maria Callas LPs at Tower Records. Suddenly, the air gleamed with an incredibly pure, honest, high, and commanding sound. It wasn't just that her voice was so beautiful: the rich, powerful Italian soprano made you redefine what "beauty" might mean. Tebaldi's voice wasn't just dramatic; it had a calming, even healing power, giving a listener a sense of... PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/arts/tebaldi-on-disc/6572/ Tue, 21 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST Renata Tebaldi surrendered her own breath to music, and the worst thing would be to let this woman's life's work be consigned to silence. For those who have never heard her, I can recommend recordings: her first recordings of Verdi's "Aida" (Decca 460978, Alberto Erede conducting) and "Madama Butterfly" (also with Erede, Decca 470577). Then there's her "La Boheme" (Decca 470577, Tullio Serafin conducting) and her "La Fanciulla del West" (Decca 1242). To sample her recital disks, try "A Tebaldi... PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/arts/too-many-messiahs/6180/ Mon, 13 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST Yes, it is one of the masterworks of music, and, yes, it is heartening to know that every December so many Gotham halls offer Handel's "Messiah." But am I the only music lover in town who's over the "Hallelujah Chorus," the twinkling star in the east, and the shepherds tending their flocks by night - tired, (well ... sometimes) of even the most radiant diva rendition of "I Know that My Redeemer Liveth"? It's not that "Messiah" has lost any of its stature. But over familiarity can sully even so... PATRICK GILES http://www.nysun.com/arts/it-didnt-sound-like-advent/6184/ Mon, 13 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST Even though the Tallis Scholars have been front-runners in exploring and successfully winning audiences over to seldom-heard Renaissance music, Friday night's concert at Columbia University proved that even the most skilled practitioners of any style, however revered, sometimes miss the point. That this was anything less than a well-prepared, skillfully executed recital is not in question. Nonetheless, the evening of often inspiring religious works by notable Renaissance composers (just two... Patrick Giles http://www.nysun.com/arts/place-at-the-top/2723/ Tue, 5 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EST It used to be there was no single prima donna, no great female opera singer who stood out from all the rest, simply because there were too many great singers. Barely a generation ago, a shortlist of the world's finest classical female singers would have included names like Joan Sutherland, Leontyne Price, Beverly Sills, Birgit Nilsson, Eileen Farrell, Anna Moffo, Magda Olivero, Renata Scotto, Montserrat Caballe, Rita Gorr, Mirella Freni, Marilyn Horne, Christa Ludwig, Janet Baker, Leonie...