Stories

Unpublished Sacred Music By Donizetti Discovered In Archive

A researcher cataloguing the music collections of the Diocese of Bergamo discovered a four-page setting of the Vespers psalm Dixit Dominus, scored for three male voices a cappella, written by the young Donizetti sometime between 1818 and 1821. - Gramilano (Milan)

Arkansans Raised Millions To Keep PBS On The Air There. Now Arkansas Is Cutting Some PBS Shows Anyway.

“Arkansas TV, formerly Arkansas PBS, is cutting and moving PBS news programming to make room for homegrown shows filmed in Arkansas, once again pulling the old switcheroo on folks who hoped their generous donations would prevent this very thing from happening.“ - Arkansas Times

Soprano Erie Mills Has Died At 73

From the late 1970s, she had a glittering 25-year career as a coloratura, from the Met to La Scala to Santa Fe and beyond. Mills then became an admired teacher and diction coach; from 2016, she was artistic director of the Livermore Valley Opera in the Bay Area. - San Francisco Classical Voice

How Commonwealth Short Story Prize Determined That This Year’s Winners Are All AI-Free

“The Commonwealth Foundation asked writers to provide drafts, story outlines, manuscripts and other evidence of their creative process when investigating allegations of AI use surrounding this year’s Commonwealth Short Story Prize, director-general Razmi Farook has (said).” - The Bookseller (UK)

Royal Ballet And Opera In London To Eliminate 64 Staff Positions

“The reductions amount to roughly five percent of the organization’s current workforce of 1,169 staff. Nine of the cuts will involve compulsory redundancies, with the remainder expected to come from unfilled vacancies, voluntary departures, and natural turnover.” - OperaWire

New York Will Not Pursue Another Retrial Of Harvey Weinstein

“The movie mogul still stands convicted of another sexual felony in New York and others in California, and he remains behind bars. But the New York rape charge had remained unresolved after an overturned conviction followed by two hung juries, ... (and) his accuser said she could not bear to testify again.” - AP

The Marquis De Lafayette Has Become A Selfie Magnet In Paris

In France, feelings about him are more mixed than in the U.S. (For one thing, during and after the French Revolution, he favored a constitutional monarchy, not the most popular position then.) But an exhibition at France’s National Archives which tells Lafayette’s full story has become a hit. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

Competing At Istanbul’s Tango Championship

The Turkish metropolis has become one of the world’s major centers of tango, perhaps behind only Buenos Aires itself. This month Istanbul hosted La Turca Tango Marathon and Championship, a three-day festival and competition which saw 56 dancers from around Europe competing in six categories. - The New York Times

The Elusive Illusion Of Utopia (And Its Uses In Our Imagination)

Some patterns emerge: many utopias employ a framing device in which the narrator is accidentally or fantastically transported to a new land, and then subjected to reams of expository monologue about how it all works.  - The Guardian

What To Make Of The US Constitution When The Country Is In Turmoil?

How should we remember the American Revolution when millions march in the streets and shout “No Kings!”? When squads of masked thugs invade homes without warrant, kangaroo immigration “courts” deport hundreds of thousands without due process, and an executive agency buys up warehouses to use as internment camps? - Boston Review

Ancient Roman “Curse Tablet” Translated

Dutch archaeologists found this curse tablet in a pit beneath Heerlen‘s town hall square. Archaeologists often frequent this area situated amid the former site of Coriovallum, a Roman military settlement along the Via Belgica, which once connected Belgium’s Tongeren region to Cologne.  - Artnet

An Actor With Alzheimer’s Performs Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape”

Peter Marinker, now 84, first played Krapp in 1983, and he’s reusing the tapes he made back then for this production in London. He’ll have an earpiece to get prompts if necessary, but when his memory fails, he refers to a poem written by the aging Beckett himself after developing aphasia. - The Guardian

Archaeologists Discover Intact Ancient Mayan City

Located deep within the jungles of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, the city—which the researchers have named “Minanbé,” a Maya Yucatec phrase meaning “there is no road”—had been hidden by vegetation for over a thousand years. - ARTnews

NYC’s Street-Scaffolding Sheds Are Ugly. Can We Design Something Better?

The city wants structures that will go up smoothly, look good while they last, and go away quickly. Those are separate goals, none of them easy to achieve. - New York Magazine (MSN)

Southbank Center Chairman To Step Down After Social Media Controversy

In May, Misan Harriman was accused by the Telegraph of sharing a social media post that contained a conspiracy theory about the Golders Green attack because it questioned the amount of coverage given to the Muslim victim, Ishmail Hussein. - The Guardian

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