Author Archives: Neil Kurtzman
A New Medical Curriculum
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th October 2015The medical school curriculum is undergoing another revision. These changes to the course of instruction occur more frequently than those of an infant’s diaper. They typically are accompanied by statements like “A curriculum change can have a large impact on a student body.” Such a statement presumably assumes the impact will be positive. It is…
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Il Trovatore in HD – 2015
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 3rd October 2015Enrico Caruso’s famous quip that you needed to do Verdi’s Il Trovatore were the four greatest singers in the world was proven correct this afternoon by the Met’s HD telecast of the opera. When you have performers as good as the Met brought together for this show you realize what an extraordinary masterpiece Il Trovatore is and how…
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The Verdi Requiem
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 2nd October 2015The Lubbock Symphony Orchestra will present Verdi’s Messa da Requiem on October 16 and 17 at the Civic Center Theater. The program notes that I wrote for the occasion are below. Giuseppe Verdi thought that 19th century Italy had produced two cultural giants – Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) and Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1873). The former literally invented…
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Otello and Racism
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 1st October 2015Otello is an opera by Giuseppe Verdi and Arrigo Boito based on Shakespeare’s play Othello. Both the play and the opera’s libretto explicitly say that Otello (Othello) is a black man. The title character requires a dramatic tenor of extraordinary vocal power and stamina. Since the opera’s premiere in 1887 the only tenors able to…
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Otello Opens the Met 2015-16 Season
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 21st September 2015There’s nothing like a live performance of an opera, especially when you can’t see it. I listened to the Met’s Otello over the Sirius network tonight and thus can’t say anything about Bart Sher’s new production which moved the story to the late 19th century. But judging by the tepid reaction to the production team’s appearance during…
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Kidney Disease and the Elderly
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th September 2015I hate to write this, but it appears that the New York Times may be more up to speed than your primary care doctor or even your nephrologist when it comes to kidney disease in the elderly. For Older Adults, Questioning a Diagnosis of Chronic Kidney Disease accurately describes a problem which has not received the…
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José Luccioni
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th September 2015José Luccioni (1903-78), despite the Spanish first name and the Italian surname, was a French tenor. Born in Corsica he was a race car driver and auto mechanic for Citroen before he discovered he had a voice. He studied with tenors Léon David and Léon Escalais and made his debut in Rouen as Cavaradossi in…
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The Doctors’ Loophole – Another Reason why this is Such a Wonderful Country
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th September 2015Forty million Americans have a combined $1.2 trillion in student debt. Since the last recession this is only type of consumer debt that hasn’t decreased. As these loans are mostly guaranteed by the government they keep accumulating. Whether going into debt to get a college education is a good idea is not my subject. Neither…
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Suicide in Doctors
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 5th September 2015One of the medical newsletters I receive describes the suicide of a 33 year old surgeon near the completion of his training. The sad story of this death was taken from an article that appeared in Time Magazine – Why The Toxic Treatment of Doctors Needs to Change. The authors of the piece are the…
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Salome in Santa Fe
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 28th August 2015John the Baptist lost his head last night in Ruritania. That seems to me to be where director Daniel Slatter set Strauss’s sonic boom. I expected the Prisoner of Zenda to appear before Narraboth killed himself. All the men except the Baptist were dressed like they thought the show was written by a different Strauss…
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