Word: chorales
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Interests: Save at least one line for a list inseries of avocational interests such as "Reading,playing guitar, running, and choral singng." Evena brief list rounds out your presentation and mayestablish an initial bond of common interest withthe reader...
...from a dozen classical cultures, ranging from British to Balinese. She heatedly denies being avant-garde but despises realism as "the end of theater" and shrugs off as "limiting and uninteresting" questions about the inner life or psychology of her characters. She delights in interrupting a tense narrative with choral dance and music staged in a highly personal melange of styles, mostly from Asia, which she considers "the true home of acting." Having argued a few years ago that no Westerner could understand Shakespeare because no one (except, of course, Mnouchkine and her disciples) could attain the requisite intellectual distance...
...fell to Domenech, a man obsessed with the history of Catalunya, to % design what may be the most extreme Art Nouveau building in Europe. This is the Palau de la Musica Catalana (1905-08). It was built for the Orfeo Catala, a choral-music society. Pablo Casals and Montserrat Caballe, both Catalans, began their careers here. From the mosaic-sheathed ticket office to the stupendous inverted bell of a stained-glass skylight in the auditorium, from the sculpted Valkyries riding across the proscenium arch to the encrustations of ceramic roses (each the size of a cabbage) on the ceiling...
...gets a gradual sense of the aspirations of the Catalan Renaixenca by walking the streets of Barcelona, noticing things, but the grid of the Eixample is vast and hard on the feet. Here in Domenech's choral theater, it is baptism by total immersion. The "new Barcelona" may not, in the end, produce any buildings that rival those of the late 19th century. But the fact of bringing the old ones back to civic life, in all their splendor, would be achievement enough for any city administration, Games or no Games...
...reality is harrowing. For the Kirov is a company in crisis, and the swarm of challenges it faces makes it emblematic of a whole culture in crisis. The Kirov, like virtually all the major performing troupes in the former Soviet Union -- the Bolshoi and countless folk and choral groups -- is struggling to survive in a parlous new era. When the communist regime dissolved and the economy collapsed, these institutions were cast adrift. The Kirov's subsidy was cut from 95% of its budget to 35%, and it will sink lower. Gergiev has the double task of keeping his treasure functioning...