Maria Callas came to life in this entertaining and moving play about her unique approach to teaching young opera singers. Karen Kondazian was wonderful as Callas, more than holding her own in a role that requires expert timing, an indestructible will, and above all, sensitivity to the many moods and motives of this extraordinary artist and personality.
SKA SCHOLARS: Those with a clue about music know not to tie ska down to the kinds of American bands that revived the genre in the late ’90s. Ska, of course, encompasses a larger variety of music than that, including earlier forms with more obvious connections to reggae, rocksteady, and other Jamaican roots music.
Stephen Malkmus, who will play SOhO on Saturday night with The Jicks, was the leader of Pavement, the best rock band of the 1990s. Fine, Nirvana sold way more records, and yes, so did Oasis, but for legions of college-educated, upper-middle-class rock fans, Pavement was it-the ultimate matador act, a perfect wonder of intelligence, credibility, and goofy rock exuberance.
A newbie activist group learns how to flex its political muscle as newly elected politicos may be freshly sworn in. Those with an eye on the future of Montecito wonder if the past week’s events offer a glimpse of the village’s political future.
NEW YEAR, NEW MUSIC: The in-town live music calendar for 2007 kicks off with a brainy bang tonight and tomorrow (January 11 and 12), as digitized N.Y.C. violinist Todd Reynolds performs with videographer Luke DuBois at the Contemporary Arts Forum.
Pan’s Labyrinth was directed by Mexican auteur Guillermo del Toro, who’s responsible for such fantasy/horror films as Hellboy, Cronos, and Blade II. Imagination runs rampant in del Toro’s hand, but underneath the special effects, there’s always a lot of heart and a perceptive view of how we live today.
When artists Brian Andreas and Ellen Rockne bought the squat, single-story, avocado green house on Pedregosa Street, they were already envisioning quite a different future for the property. Last week, they began demolition of the existing structure in order to clear the ground for a new eco-home-an environmentally friendly, factory-built, modular home.
The National Labor Relations Board hearing over the News-Press management’s objections to the September 2006 vote to unionize continued after the Tuesday’s lunch break with testimony from opinion page editor Travis Armstrong, human resources manager Yolanda Apodaca (pictured), and former News-Press supervisors Dale Myers, Andrea Huebner, Don Murphy , and Jane Hulse. By day’s end, the N-P‘s lawyers had rested.
No more Joy at the
