“What began with … piling the family and their sets into a van and putting on shows for churches and home-school groups has evolved into a performing arts conservatory, a 300-seat theater and a twice-annual residency at the Museum of the Bible just south of the National Mall.” – The Washington Post (MSN)
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One of his short stories inspired Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker, but ETA Hoffmann – German romantic writer, polymath, rake – was also a sci-fi pioneer. He tried to build his own automata and invented tales about artificially created beings even before Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. The wind-up mechanical doll, Olympia, from his story The Sandman (1816), has a central role in composer Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann, which has opened at the Royal Opera in a richly inventive new production conducted by Antonello Manacorda and directed by Damiano Michieletto. No gag opportunity is missed, no surprise suppressed. The whole event is a riot, done with extreme seriousness.
Offenbach died in 1880 before the work could be staged. Had he not done so, he might have left a definitive edition of his odd, lopsided but touching creation. The Royal Opera, in a co-production with Opera Australia, Opéra National de Lyon and the Teatro La Fenice, Venice, presents a new edition. For an opera staged regularly but not frequently, any changes should distract few: it manages a degree of chronological security that leaves the Italian production team – also responsible for, among others, the Royal Opera’s winning Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci last year – free to pursue their wildest fantasies.
And they do. Industrial quantities of glitter, a pea-green corps de ballet who dance with chairs, extreme wigs, carnival masks, a smashed cello, enchanting child ballerinas, parrot and doppelganger, stilts, tumblers, hula hoops: all – relatively – normal operatic fare. Add in the shrivelled brain, the enlarged eyeball, the mathematic equations in which integers end up as a choreographed chorus (you had to be there), and a bizarre new Hoffmannesque world emerges. In Paolo Fantin’s joyful set designs, an extravaganza of greens, pinks and crimsons, with costumes by Carla Teti, lighting by Alessandro Carletti and choreography by Chiara Vecchi, skill and imagination are boundless.
All this would be worthless without excellent soloists, chorus and orchestra to deliver Offenbach’s melodic, sprawling score. In short, the old man Hoffmann recalls his failed, youthful loves: Olympia (Olga Pudova), who is merely a doll; Antonia (Ermonela Jaho), who will die if she sings – her talent shown here through the metaphor of dance; and Giulietta (Marina Costa-Jackson), a courtesan. Pudova’s coloratura, chiselled and icy, and her stiff, clockwork gestures stole the show for dazzle, but Jaho, as ever, caught the work’s heartbreak. Costa-Jackson made the most of the less rounded character of the glamorous Giulietta.
Hoffmann himself is a curiosity, hard to comprehend but elegantly sung by Juan Diego Flórez, intonation always secure though at times his top notes lasted just a bit too lo-o-ng. His nemeses – various devil-like figures played with sinister brilliance and terrific vocal finesse by Alex Esposito – held us mesmerised. With outstanding support from Julie Boulianne, Christine Rice, Jeremy White, Alastair Miles and more, and a committed chorus required to perform unlikely complex sequences including lying on their backs and waggling their feet, this was the Royal Ballet and Opera on best form.
The orchestra delivered this long score with endless panache and attention to detail. Manacorda paced the performance well, and idiomatically, though the stop-start gaps for applause were excessive. Offenbach, after so many effervescent operettas, wanted to be taken seriously. This production honours his strange and idiosyncratic genius.
Composers of one generation can cast shadows, as well as light, on the next. Nineteenth-century romantics struggled beneath the tonnage of Beethoven. For a generation in Finland, Sibelius dominated. As the composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen (b.1958), said in a recent interview: “When I was growing up. I chose to go to Italy to study, because I wanted to get somewhere far away from Sibelius – he was everywhere.” Now based in Los Angeles but back in London as conductor laureate of the Philharmonia Orchestra, Salonen acknowledges Sibelius as the greatest artist in Finnish history. Accordingly, a deep understanding shaped his reading of Sibelius’s Symphony No 1, drawing fearless, well-drilled playing from the orchestra.
The centrepiece of this all-Finnish concert, after the short, jubilant Flounce by Lotta Wennäkoski (b.1970), first heard at the Proms in 2017, was the UK premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s Viola Concerto. A friend and exact contemporary of Salonen, Lindberg more willingly embraced the influence of Sibelius, creating pieces which capture similar expanses of Nordic landscape, musical or actual. He wrote the viola concerto for Lawrence Power, one of the most imaginative exponents of the instrument, and currently a resident artist at the Southbank Centre.
The three movements flow into one another, punctuated by heady brass fanfares. Every string technique is employed by the soloist: pizzicato (plucking), quadruple stopping (bowing four strings at once), harmonics (touching the string lightly to create ghostly, ethereal high notes) and, in an extended cadenza, playing the viola as a banjo and singing along, as if searching for notes in the ether. All that, plus the long, lyrical lines so distinctive in this middle-voiced instrument, made this a compelling work, immediately worthy of a place in the repertoire as long as someone apart from Power is capable of playing it (Timothy Ridout or Tabea Zimmermann should cope).
Another world-class string player, the Norwegian Vilde Frang, made a powerful case, were one any longer needed, for Erich Korngold’s Violin Concerto, which draws on melodies from his own Hollywood film scores, causing inevitable disdain in some quarters at the time of its 1947 premiere. In a concert with the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of the orchestra’s chief conductor, Kirill Petrenko, Frang caught the mood of bittersweet melancholy and yearning, galloping to an elfin, catch-me-if-you-can finale, exuberant horns stating the luscious main theme in the closing section. The orchestra also played Dvořák’s Symphony No 7, as if this familiar score had been taken to pieces – Petrenko is exhaustive in his analysis of every note, every bar – and reconstructed with fresh, rebellious, carefree energy.
The other work was Rachmaninov’s tone poem The Isle of the Dead, inspired by Arnold Böcklin’s spooky painting. A mysterious rocking melody builds to a ferocious climax, often likened to Charon ferrying the dead to Hades. The Berliners united in a mighty roar. The River Styx was in full spate. The return to a perfectly hushed pianissimo came as balm to the soul.
Star ratings (out of five)
The Tales of Hoffmann ★★★★
Philharmonia/Salonen ★★★★
Berlin Philharmonic/Petrenko ★★★★★
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On a Friday afternoon on the last day of May, Donna Faye Burchfield was sitting on her deck in Philadelphia when a newspaper notification popped up on her friend’s phone: University of the Arts, where Burchfield had been dean of the School of Dance since 2010, was closing its doors in a week—for good. Were Burchfield and her colleagues given any warning? “Of course not,” she says with a laugh, still incredulous months after the fact. “And we had 31 students scheduled to leave for France in less than two weeks for the low-residency MFA program.”
Burchfield spent the rest of the night pacing her apartment, trying to process the shock. The next morning, she started making phone calls, relying on friends and colleagues in the field to help her compile a list of contacts who might be able to help. “I didn’t even know what I was going to ask for,” she remembers. “It was like being lost at sea. I needed to figure how to get to land.”
Eventually, Burchfield was connected to Bennington College president Laura Walker and provost Maurice Hall, and described her most immediate concern: that the 13 UArts low-residency MFA students expected to graduate at the end of the summer—many of whom had already accepted job offers predicated on earning their degrees—would be able to do so. “I explained that,” says Burchfield, “and Laura said, ‘Don’t stop there. How else can Bennington help? What else do you need?’ ”
Just two months later, thanks to Walker’s heroic fundraising efforts and the generosity of three major donors, The New York Times announced that the UArts School of Dance would be revived at Bennington College. In September, 36 BFA students, 20 continuing low-residency MFA students, and 13 faculty members matriculated to Bennington, trading UArts’ urban Philadelphia setting for Bennington’s pastoral Vermont campus.
While the partnership might seem unexpected, both Burchfield and Walker see it as a serendipitous continuation of Bennington’s modern dance legacy. In 1934, a group of artists including Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Hanya Holm, and Charles Weidman helped to launch the Bennington School of Dance, a summer festival that acted as both a training program and a creative laboratory. In the decades since, dance has continued to play an important role at the college, with notable teachers including José Limón, Judith Dunn, and Steve Paxton.
“There’s a direct line from our founding dance faculty to what we’re doing now,” says Walker. “Bennington was the first college to put the arts at the center of the curriculum, and that still informs everything we do.” Other Philadelphia-based schools, like Temple University and Drexel University, offered to absorb UArts students and faculty. But Burchfield understood that what made UArts’ dance program special was more than just its people. “We were looking for a place where we could hold on to the ways that we’ve taught students,” she says. “There was already a history of experimental pedagogy in place at Bennington.”
A new program, made up of former UArts students and faculty, now exists alongside Bennington’s BA in dance. While the BFA is more geared towards preparing dancers for performance careers and the BA is primarily focused on choreography, interdisciplinary research, and critical inquiry, students are free to take classes across both tracks. Outside of their BFA classes—which will be taught by many former UArts professors (including Shayla-Vie Jenkins and Jesse Zaritt, who will act as faculty advisors), mostly in a rotating group who will visit Bennington to teach in three- and seven-week stints—the transfer students will be fully integrated into life at Bennington, living in campus housing and choosing their own BA courses. UArts’ low-residency MFA students will go to Bennington’s campus over the college’s fall and spring breaks, and then spend six weeks over the summer in Montpellier, France, just as they did before the merger.
While Walker and Burchfield hope that the UArts transplants feel settled in Vermont this year, they’re still hoping to find a satellite space in Philadelphia where the BFA program can build a home. “Philadelphia has such a rich cultural life,” says Walker. “I’m really excited about having an outpost in the city that all of Bennington College can use.”
Before the start of the academic year, Burchfield and her team laid down a support floor in Bennington’s student union, transforming it into a studio for the BFA students. “It was like this space was waiting for the floor to be laid. All those folks and all that labor, it still lives here,” says Burchfield, referencing Bennington’s dance history. But it’s Burchfield and Walker’s steadfast belief in arts education that’s allowing that legacy to continue to grow. As of press time, dance is the only one of UArts’ schools to find a way forward for a large group of students and faculty.
Walker hopes that this collaboration can serve as a blueprint for other programs suffering in the future. “As the arts are under attack, we need to find new models to ensure that programs like this, that are extraordinary, will continue,” she says. To that end, Burchfield has hung a quote by Merce Cunningham dancer Viola Farber—another member of Bennington’s storied dance faculty—on the door of her new office. It reads: “I think somehow all of us who work at dancing inspire one another; whether we have anything specifically to do with each other or not.”
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Like champagne itself, the revitalized Maison Ruinart in Reims, France emanates a sense of lightness and effervescence. After two years of meticulous restoration, this historic address, deeply rooted in the winemaking tradition of Champagne, has been reborn with a fresh, modern vision – one that captures the very essence of champagne through architecture, design, and landscape. Led by a renowned team consisting of Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, landscape designer Christophe Gautrand, and interior architect Gwenaël Nicolas, the collaborative design includes a new pavilion of stone and glass, nestled within a public sculpture garden that champions local biodiversity.
Fujimoto’s design draws inspiration from the lightness of champagne bubbles, forming an airy, asymmetrical structure with sweeping curves that echo the roundness of a champagne glass. Fujimoto goes on to say, “Through the pavilion’s bay window, facing the main courtyard, you see Maison Ruinart as if in a dream.” The pavilion’s transparent wall opens to the main courtyard, allowing visitors to view both the historic surroundings and the landscape beyond in one fluid scene. Inside, visitors experience a blend of light and shadow, moving through connected spaces that reflect the limestone-rich landscape of the region. With its winding paths and expansive glass, the pavilion offers a sensory journey that emphasizes the subtle beauty of nature.
The interiors blend textures and hues in a nod to Ruinart’s chardonnay vineyards, with details like green-toned upholstery and oak and beech furnishings that evoke petal-like forms. Floating glass bubbles by Atelier Barrois decorate the bar, adding to the dreamlike atmosphere. An intimate cellar beneath the pavilion offers a secluded tasting experience for enthusiasts, featuring Ruinart’s rarest vintages. “I wanted to strike the right balance between the history of an ageold Maison and a more contemporary perspective. Visitors are invited to plunge into the world of Ruinart, feeling both guided and free to explore as they please,” says interior architect Gwenaël Nicolas.
The restored site not only honors the heritage of Maison Ruinart but serves as a place for modern dialogue, welcoming artisans, artists, chefs, and visitors to engage in a shared celebration of culture, history, and the art of champagne.
Photography by Raul Cabrera.
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A wall lay in ruins, and Ilit Azoulay salvaged what she could. It must have been a tough choice of what to save and what to let go.
For Azoulay, trash can itself be precious, for it tells of the people who left it behind. And anything, no matter how revered and how precious, could one day soon end up in the trash. As the Jewish Museum has it, they are “Mere Things,” through January 5—
and I work this together wish a past report on still life with thoughts of death by Rachael Catharine Anderson as a longer review and my latest upload.
Those ruins from Tel Aviv form the basis of Tree for Too One, as in (almost) “two for one” and “Tea for Two.” You can forgive Azoulay an easy pun and the old soft shoe. She puts things through a process very much like punning, which is to say art. It takes a museum wall to display them all, some on shelves and others transformed again by photographing them, before displaying the photos, too. This is both physical collage and photocollage, and it leans a magnifying class on one its pieces—to aid in looking or to put under scrutiny what she sees. Earth tones help unify the work and preserve its warmth.
Just how precious, though, is it? Azoulay is not saying, but a gasket can look like a wedding ring, and a tree (or whatever is left of it) grows right there, in a flower pot—falling to its right toward death. More objects rest in a display case a few feet away. That strangely human wish for meaning does the transforming, but so do snapshots salvaged from the site. They look all the more poignant for their bright smiles and clumsy prints, set amid a sophisticated work of photography. People, too, can become objects and images, but as testimony to lives.
This is not NIMBY—not a protest against construction in the country’s most cosmopolitan city. A pressing need for housing dates back even before the international accord that promised a state of Israel and a Palestinian state. Refugees to Israel knew all about displacement, much like art. Builders were so desperate, the museum explains, that they built walls from whatever lay at hand. And yes, that was another way of valuing and preserving trash. Azoulay need only reveal what walls once hid.
Museums go through a similar process of deciding what to value every day. No surprise then, if the rest of work since 2010 responds to museum collections. None is exactly site specific, because it is also continuing its transformations. Again and again, she seeks parallels among disparate objects, like a piper and a stone saint. A photocollage makes objects from the Jewish Museum itself take flight, as Unity Totem. Azoulay produced her most massive work while in residence at a museum in Berlin, where she lives. 
As the title has it, there are Shifting Degrees of Certainty.
Two more works start with photographs of objects in the Israel Museum and the Museum for Islamic Art, both in Jerusalem. No surprise there, too—not when Israel still seeks safety and Palestine its due recognition. No surprise as well if the first includes HVAC units and other museum infrastructure. That work includes a collage of human cutouts and stone, while fragments of Arab art become a magician’s robe. Once again people are the most precious object of all. As the work after the Israel Museum has it, No Thing Dies.
The curator, Shira Backer, stresses how much the artist relies on digital magic. “A pebble becomes a boulder, the handle of a ewer the scepter of a queen.” I was struck instead by the weight of images—not just the emotional weight, but the physical weight of museum objects. The eighty-five photos from Berlin have distinct shapes and separate frames, nesting together like a single precious structure. Born in Israel in 1972, she keeps returning to both her origins and Berlin. The work provides a tour of physical space as well.
Read more, now in a feature-length article on this site.
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Michael Findlay started directing gallery programs in 1960s New York and has written about that period in his latest book, Portrait of the Art Dealer as a Young Man: New York in the Sixties.
I talk with Michael about his extensive career and how things have changed over the past 60 years.
He discusses the qualities of a good collector, the evolving relationship between dealer and artist, and the current focus of many collectors on art as investment rather than appreciation. We also talk about the importance of looking—of immersing oneself in the art rather than relying on text and labels.
We finish up with a funny personal story about Andy Warhol.
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His eye murals, each one seemingly alive and filled with emotion, have left an indelible mark on the streets across the globe. From the rich colors to the intricate reflections in each iris, My Dog Sighs manages to convey something deeply human in every piece.
Join me as I share a curated selection of his works, highlighting the artistry and emotion that make his murals so unforgettable.
If you’re as captivated by My Dog Sighs’ work as I am, make sure to follow him on Instagram @mydogsighs to see more of his incredible murals and keep up with his latest creations. His feed is filled with eye-catching pieces that bring life to urban spaces around the world.
My Dog Sighs: We’ve all sat and watched this hideous situation unfurl and while it’s not much, I wanted to do what I know best, (throwing paint) to highlight my sadness and anger over the Ukrainian invasion by Russia.
More: Beautiful artwork of a crying eye featuring Ukraine’s flag and bombing of capital Kyiv
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By the turn of the 20th century, New York’s skyline was changing fast, and architects and builders were competing to reach the skies. The city was in the midst of an economic boom, and with the development of steel-frame construction, this period marked the beginning of a skyscraper race, as corporations sought to showcase their prestige by erecting taller and more visually striking corporate buildings. Among these was the Flatiron Building.
Rising at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway, the Flatiron was a departure from the traditional box-like shapes dominating the city’s architecture. Designed by architect Daniel Burnham, its striking 22-story-high, wedge-shaped structure soon became an iconic architectural site, even appearing in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, symbolizing New York’s architectural heart as the office of the Daily Bugle.
A steel skeleton, one of the first to be used, enabled Manhattan’s Flatiron Building to become the tallest building in the world, approximately 300 feet high, at the time of its completion. Photo by Charles R. Ritzmann/Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images.
Nicknamed the Flatiron for its resemblance to a clothes iron, the building was inaugurated in 1902 and instantly captured public attention. It wasn’t just a new addition to New York’s geography; it was a bold declaration of architectural ambition and ingenuity.
Close view of ornament on the building exterior of Flatiron Building in New York City. The Flatiron Building, originally the Fuller Building, is a steel-framed landmarked building located at 175 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District neighborhood of borough of Manhattan, New York City. Photo by: Sergi Reboredo/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images.
At 285 feet tall, it was one of the first skyscrapers built with a steel frame, enabling the building to withstand the powerful winds that barreled down Fifth Avenue. Burnham trained in Beaux-Arts architecture, and chose to adorn the Flatiron’s slender façade with glazed terracotta and limestone details, creating an intricate exterior that drew even more intrigue to its unconventional shape. The building was initially known as the Fuller Building, as it housed the headquarters of the Chicago-based Fuller Company.
New Yorkers were initially skeptical of the Flatiron’s design, and critics predicted it might collapse. The New York Tribune deemed it “the greatest inanimate troublemaker in New York.” At the time, steel-frame construction was met with caution by the general public, who feared that such tall, slender buildings might not be stable. The Flatiron’s slender triangular shape created powerful winds, known as the “Flatiron breeze” which only heightened the building’s fame. However, Burnham’s architecturally daring structure proved strong.
Jeffrey Gural [L] and Jacob Garlick [R] at the auction of the Flatiron Building on 22 March 22, 2023. Photo: Christina Horsten via Getty Images.
Today, the Flatiron Building is entering a new chapter. For years, scaffolding has shielded its silhouette as restorations took place, but soon the building may shed its purely commercial past. A group of owners have submitted plans to convert the Flatiron into luxury apartments. If approved, the renovation would introduce New Yorkers to a unique residential opportunity. The building’s surrounding neighborhood, fittingly called the Flatiron District, has evolved and grown alongside the building, transforming from a commercial area into one of New York’s most lively areas, filled with high-end restaurants, boutiques, and cultural landmarks.
The Flatiron has woven itself into the identity of New York City, its once-mocked structure is now a celebrated landmark. Decade after decade, it stands as a testament to the idea that bold architecture can reshape a city’s character, and proves that true icons are those that dare to stand apart.
Even the world’s most ambitious structure began with a humble plan. In Blueprint, we drill down to the foundations of dream homes and iconic buildings to explore how architects and designers brought them to life.
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The businesswoman and TV personality Martha Stewart has taken issue with a major new documentary about her life and work, which has premiered on Netflix.
Stewart, 83, one of the highest-profile media personalities in the US, criticises the production, focus and editing of RJ Cutler’s Martha. She cooperated in the making of the film, and contributed extensive contemporary interviews.
In an interview with The New York Times, Stewart poured scorn on the product she was nominally promoting, saying that while Cutler was given “total access” to her archive, he “really used very little. It was just shocking.”
She took particular issue with the closing segment of the film, which she unsuccessfully lobbied the director to change. “Those last scenes with me looking like a lonely old lady walking hunched over in the garden?” she said. “Boy, I told him to get rid of those. And he refused.
“I hate those last scenes. Hate them. I had ruptured my achilles tendon. I had to have this hideous operation. And so I was limping a little. But again, he doesn’t even mention why – that I can live through that and still work seven days a week.”
Cutler’s previous work includes biographical studies of Billie Eilish, Elton John, John Belushi, Dick Cheney and Anna Wintour. His first film credit, The War Room, about Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, was nominated for the best documentary Oscar.
Stewart’s other criticisms of Martha included the “lousy” score and unflattering cinematography.
“I said to RJ,” she said: “‘An essential part of the film is that you play rap music.’ Dr Dre will probably score it, or Snoop or Fredwreck. I said, ‘I want that music.’ And then he gets some lousy classical score in there, which has nothing to do with me.” (Stewart co-presented a TV series with Snoop Dogg, Potluck Dinner Party, between 2016 and 2020.)
The director also refused to take her instruction on cameras, she said, despite using three of them. “He chooses to use the ugliest angle,” she said. “And I told him, ‘Don’t use that angle! That’s not the nicest angle. You had three cameras. Use the other angle.’ He would not change that.”
Meanwhile, Stewart felt that Cutler chose to focus disproportionately on her high-profile 2004 trial, which led to her conviction on felony charges relating to stock trading.
“It was not that important,” she told the New York Times. “The trial and the actual incarceration was less than two years out of an 83-year life. I considered it a vacation, to tell you the truth.”
However, Stewart did say she liked the first half of the film, as it “gets into things that many people don’t know anything about” and said she had received some cheering feedback from young female viewers.
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“So many girls have already told me that watching it gave them a strength that they didn’t know they had,” Stewart said. “And that’s the thing I like most about the documentary. It really shows a strong woman standing up for herself and living through horror as well as some huge success.”
“That’s what I wanted the documentary to be,” she added. “It shouldn’t be me boasting about inner strength and any of that crap. It should be about showing that you can get through life and still be yourself.”
The director responded to his subject’s criticisms by telling the publication: “I am really proud of this film, and I admire Martha’s courage in entrusting me to make it. I’m not surprised that it’s hard for her to see aspects of it.”
In 2021, Alanis Morissette disowned a documentary about her life and career, Jagged, which premiered at the Toronto film festival and accused director Alison Klayman of betraying her trust.
“I was lulled into a false sense of security and their salacious agenda became apparent immediately upon my seeing the first cut of the film,” said Morissette. “This was not the story I agreed to tell.”
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