Monthly Archives: November 2010
Dimitri Platanias
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 28th November 2010Dimitri Platanias is a Greek baritone just emerging onto the international stage. He has a big beefy baritone that seems ideal for Verdi. A great Verdi baritone is about as rare an operatic bird as can be found in the lyric aviary. The scarcity of the breed is the consequence of Verdi’s writing much of his…
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New Photos Added
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th November 2010Five new photographs added here. The new ones are on page 11.
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Hemodialysis Update
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 26th November 2010Two new articles discuss important aspects of hemodialysis in the US. One is in the lay press, the other in the New England Journal. The lay article, in the Atlantic Magazine, is an exercise in yellow journalism. If you or someone in your family needs dialysis it will scare you to death – perhaps literally….
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Les Huguenots – Act 4 Duet
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 23rd November 2010Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864) is roughly treated nowadays. But his operas did have a century long run which is far more than most composers for the stage get or can expect. And they still are occasionally performed. The best of them is likely Les Huguenots – premiered in 1836. Berlioz thought it an unqualified masterpiece. Perhaps the most…
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A Liberal Education
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 22nd November 2010Nobody can teach you nothing. You got to learn for yourself – Willie Mays Gregory A Petsko, the Gyula and Katica Tauber Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry and chair of biochemistry at Brandeis University, has written an open, angry, and hostile letter to George M. Philip, the president of the State University of New York at Albany…
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Una partita a poker
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 11th November 2010Talk to any theater person and he’ll tell you that the second act curtain should descend on the show’s strongest scene. Nobody was better at ending the second act than Giacomo Puccini. With the premiere of the Met’s revival La Fanciulla del West less than a month away, I thought I’d present a few versions of the opera’s second act finale. This the scene where the…
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Letter From Dallas
Written by | 10th November 2010The author of this letter is Dean Emeritus of the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas Tech University. It describes her reactions to the performances of Mozart’s Don Giovanni on Nov 5 and that of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena the following day at the Dallas Opera. NK We had an interesting time at the Dallas…
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Screening for Lung Cancer
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 9th November 2010A study of patients at high risk for lung cancer has been announced to the lay press. It showed that screening current and former heavy smokers with low-dose computed tomography (CT-scans) resulted in 20% fewer deaths from the disease compared with a standard chest X-ray. Before you visit your local imaging center after buying a…
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