Tuesday, November 13, 2007

bergman, von sydow, new operas, and more

So I have a string of unrelated things to blog about today. First, on Sunday I saw an Ingmar Bergman double feature at the Aero, part of a tribute to Max von Sydow. We started the evening with The Seventh Seal, which I've seen before, but not in the theater, and ended with The Virgin Spring, which was new to me. It was a dark and heavy evening, spent pondering the existence of a divine being and if s/he exists why so many awful things happen in this world. It was nonetheless very enjoyable, and I highly recommend these two films. The evening would have been even better had Max von Sydow been in attendance to answer questions between the two films, as he had originally been slated to do. Alas, his son's grandmother, therefore his mother (!! Max is 88, according to IMDB, so how old is his mom????) was ill in Sweden and thus he had to return home early, as his son informed us.

Ok, next unrelated idea: this article in the New York Times caught my attention, so I looked for Charles Ward's thoughts in the Houston Chronicle. Intriguing.

Also of interest, there have been a few more articles about Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra, including this and this.

Finally, a fellow oboist pointed out the above YouTube clip. I have no comment for it.

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