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Elisir d'Amore - ROH 23/11/2012

Elisir d'Amore at the Royal Opera House - Covent Garden tonight. Godd singers, good orchestra- above all Donizetti is a great composer. Some remarks on the interpreters and the production Roberto Alagna was never in the time - always weigthing on the poor orchestra, and acting as the childish field worker of his personnage - overly long notes (we are not in Neapolitan song!), stupid messing up with the conductor at the end, whom he made wear his farmer's hat...! Aleksandra Kursak Adina has an incredible easiness in complex and rapid note sequences, and normally una buona intonaziona, ma, stranamente, sulle note lunghe è sempre crescente - disturba abbastanza. Dulcamara molto bravo, preciso, a tempo, n personaggio non di spicco ma molto giusto nel suo ruolo di bonaccione truffatore. Coro straordinario, soprattutto femminile, nel secondo atto quando "zitto, zitto" rivela che Nemorino è diventato ricco. Come sempre, con l'opera buffa italiana i produttori r

Benoit Madelbrot died 14.10.2010

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MOURNING OVER  BENOIST MANDELBROT'S DEATH MAY HE REPOSE IN PEACE AMONG ENDLESSLY REPEATING DELIGHTS.  MERCI   Paris, October 2010 

Music before reason

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I do not know any of the opus number of classical scores: I can of course tell you that a Bach is a Bach, and that a Beethoven is what it is, and so on. But do not tell me a number, hoping to hear me singing; and do not interrupt my song, asking what it is! Still, there are some mysterious moments in which I hear a music, and I have always had it inside me. I find it again as I would find a towel that I know, a home towel, on a foreign table. I have it as the odour of your own apartment. It springs out of me and we never left. This happened tonight http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrumQ7upLSM&feature=related It is a weird sensation; I do not know it formally, but it is a part of my person. It is like an ancient memory after an accident. Indeed, the accident is time. Never did I hear so much music as when I were an unconscious child. Children are immobilised, they have nothing to do, they have a strong perception and a voracious memory - if you wash them with music, it wil

Vampires - a Belgian film

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This film may have well have been produced by a Frenchman, and smuggled as Belgian, just for a French to make another joke on the rudeness of their neughbours. You see it and you think: well, French are not so wrong about Belgians after all, thos film is just gross! "Vampires" means nothing. The idea is pretty cool and promising: a Belgian TV makes a documentary on the Belgian Vampire community. Cool! Imagine, you spectator, the modern vampires reduced to live in Belgium, and to be perhaps beaten by large blonde men full of beer and boast. Nobody shall thake them too seriously down there! Or, cool, imagine the fun of getting to know the everyday's troubles of a vampire in modern society - how to get breakfast, how to go to lunch with human colleagues...or, again, how the contact with humans if possible, or, how really threatening they are, or, what they want... Nothing of al that. Nor a technical expanation, or a moral of the story, or a meaning or a subtle comparison

Longevity is a matter of choice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SBXU2ES5Rs&NR=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lTS9lc9ZU0&NR=1

Longevity is a matter of choice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SBXU2ES5Rs&NR=1

Maison de Poupée

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Ne tremblez pas, mais je dois le dire: Audrey Tautou est anorexique ou presque. C'est ce qu'on découvre avec étonement lorsqu'elle rentre sur scène avec un pauvre jupon sans manches: on admire d'abord la ligne filante, l'irresistible courbe de ses hanches, mais quand on passe aux bras la magie est brisée. Et alors on comprend sa vitalité et ses mains trop grandes: elles sont les dons d'une folle. On comprends alors aussi son role d'hirondelle dans Amélie, de fiancée pure, d'enfantine, de poupée en Maison de Poupée. Et le coeur du spectateur en est transporté. Cela a sans doute un role dans l'emotion que la pièce provoque, outre que les lumières, parfaites, encomiables, le décor mémorable et la bande sonore très, très appropriées. Musique contemporaine très bien choisie, on est meme effleuré par l'idé qu'Ibsen aie pu les suggerer lui-meme dans la pièce. Les décors sont classiques, adhérents au texte, et cela donne toujours. Laura (Tautou) e

Differenz

The main difference between philosophy and sociology is that sociology has as its highest objective the description or explanation of the organization of the human crowd, whereas philosophy may (or not) produce an image of human assembly as one consequence, among many others, of the explication of a unique first principle which informs the whole reality. Therefore sociology may be more "vraisemblable", but is paradoxically more myop. Sociology looks more appealing and popular - it can explain you why you would better gift your nighbour with a box of chocolate rather than with a fridge (A.O. Hirschman, Felicità privata, Felicità pubblica), or why you tend to refer to your family rather than your boss to adress a problem if you are a conservative. Sociology gives you the feeling to catch the complexity of the mud you are into, in the social mess. To me, it has always secretely looked like the test results of a feminine magazine - it appeals to senses and curiosity, and sits