Holiday sounds: manger, mistletoe, and martinis
Every December, a crop of new recordings address the season by celebrating the birth of Jesus, playing up the frivolity of holiday parties, and all variations between. These are some of this year’s CDs. PBS viewers know well the angelic boys choir Libera. A recorded concert at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Armagh soars to heavenly ...
Chestnuts roasting in London … to Offenbach’s “Fantasio” 1
To the classical chestnuts of many a holiday season — Messiahs, Nutcrackers, Oratorios, Bats and Holy Nights — as essential and perennial as those roasting on that open fire, perhaps add the delightful confection that is Offenbach’s Fantasio.
Koehler Clips: Camille Claudel, Lenny Cooke, Vermeer
CAMILLE CLAUDEL 1915 The brilliant female sculptor Camille Claudel, according to the 1988 movie version starring Isabelle Adjani, was oppressively dominated by the towering presence of Auguste Rodin and effectively driven insane by jealous but more powerful men. But writer-director Bruno Dumont isn’t interested in that version or chapter of Claudel’s life. Dumont is one ...
Museo Jumex’s Eugenio Lopez powerfully rendered by Juan Bastos 4
Dec
17
2013
When friend of arts·meme Juan Bastos, who is not just a talented and in-demand portrait artist but also a super nice person, shared with us his distinguished oil painting of his client Eugenio Lopez, completed last year, we were struck by the skillful rendering of a powerful-looking young man. What we did not realize was ...
Happy 75th birthday, Laemmle Theatres!
Dec
16
2013
At arts·meme, we love movie theaters and none has sustained us better over the past two decades than the wonderful seven-location art-house chain Laemmle Theatres. Over the next week, the Laemmles are celebrating a significant birthday, with great screenings and charitable donations. Two of the screenings here, Monday, December 16, Noho Seven, North Hollywood: Wim ...
Nureyev returns to Los Angeles 1
It takes a village to bring back a prince. And that’s exactly what happened on Thursday, December 5, 2013, when Dance Camera West hosted a tribute to the twentieth century’s greatest male ballet dancer, Rudolf Nureyev. The peerless Nureyev performed in Los Angeles on many occasions — primarily at the Shrine Auditorium with the Royal ...
Victor to Hedy: Let’s do brunch.
Dec
9
2013
Join Hollywood Heritage at the Hollywood Heritage Museum (the historic Lasky-DeMille Barn at 2100 N. Highland Ave.) for a catered brunch at 11:30 am at the birthplace of the Hollywood motion picture industry! The brunch will be followed at 1:30 pm by a guided walking tour to the Egyptian Theatre and a screening of DeMille’s SAMSON ...
Who was Sally Forrest? Let’s watch her dance. 2
Katherine Sally Feeney, the daughter of amateur ballroom dancing parents, was born on May 28, 1928. Her father, Michael Feeney, a U.S. Navy career man moved his family to various naval bases, finally settling in San Diego where little Sally was born and began dance classes with Marguerite Ellicott at the age of 12. “Miss ...
Koehler Clips: Sondheim, Fosse, Nicolas Rey
For those of us who think that the decline of the American musical theater (putting aside “The Book of Mormon,” coming back soon to the Pantages) is a pretty sad spectacle, we have a nice fix of the real thing with “Six by Sondheim,” an ingeniously conceived look at Stephen Sondheim’s art directed by his ...
“Inside” a portrait of the artist as his own worst enemy 1
One of the most interesting things about the reaction to “Inside Llewyn Davis” (Arcight, Hollywood; The Landmark, Westwood) is puzzlement over whether writers-directors Joel and Ethan Coen intend a sarcastic portrayal of the early ‘60s folk music scene in Greenwich Village. The question isn’t baseless. Sarcasm has sometimes been a potent tool for the brothers ...