Author Archives: Neil Kurtzman
Maestro – Review
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 24th December 2023Bradley Cooper has made a movie based on the life of conductor/composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife the actress Felicia Montealegre. Cooper, who also co-wrote and directed the film, has taken the greatest pains to make the two protagonists seem identical to the duo they portray. Cooper has so gotten into the Bernstein character that…
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Error
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th December 2023She’s been my lifelong companion. Never left my side for a nanosecond. I’m using the feminine just by default. Like the supreme being, error and gender are as unrelated as ham and gefilte fish. She doesn’t just afflict humans or other animate objects – she suffuses the universe and her basic nature is more mysterious…
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Beverly Sills
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 14th December 2023Born Belle Miriam Silverman in 1929 in Brooklyn to immigrant parents she acquired the nickname “Bubbles” as a child. Its shadow stayed with her as a friendly reminder of her early days. She started singing when she was three and began vocal lessons at seven. She adopted her professional name Beverly Sills at nine. She…
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Florencia en el Amazonas in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 9th December 2023Mexican composer Daniel Catán’s opera was the Metropolitan Opera’s third HD telecast of this season. The work was first performed by the Houston Grand Opera in 1996. This run is Florencia’s first appearance at the Met. Much has been made over two features of the opera neither of which has any bearing on its artistic…
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The Meaning of Life
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 8th December 2023Humans, at least since the time of the ancient Israelites, and the Greeks more than 2000 years ago, have tried to figure out why we are here and what is our purpose in the vast Cosmos we inhabit seemingly with the significance of a single photon in the Milky Way. Well, after a life approaching…
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Social Justice Fallacies – Book Review
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 4th December 2023I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy. Richard Feynman Thomas Sowell has been one of America’s greatest public intellectuals for over a half-century. During that span, he has published 48 books. His latest, written at age 93, is Social Justice Fallacies. He didn’t start life behind…
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Finale 39 – Benvenuto Cellini
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th November 2023Hector Berlioz was among the most innovative and original of all the great composers. His first opera loosely based on an episode from the Renaissance artist’s memoirs was written in 1838. It sounds like nothing that preceded it. The music moves like the molten metal that is used to cast Cellini’s famous statue of Perseus…
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Autonomous Cars VS Autonomous Drivers
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 22nd November 2023The problem with human intelligence is that its normal range is too broad. The difference between the lower limit of normal compared to the upper point of the normal range is so wide that the average comes in at such a low number that the ordinary performance of typical human functions is beyond the capacity…
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Finale 38 – Dialogues des Carmélites
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 21st November 2023Dialogues des Carmélites (Dialogues of the Carmelites) is an opera in three acts with music and libretto by Francis Poulenc. It is the story of the Martyrs of Compiègne, Carmelite nuns who, in 1794 during the closing days of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, were guillotined in Paris for refusing to renounce…
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Malcolm X in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 18th November 2023X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X was telecast today. As a piece of sophisticated parochialism it will grip the hearts of Upper West Side New Yorkers who regularly attend the Met. If you seek a work for the lyric theater that touches a spark common to all men you will not find it…
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