Paris

The Egyptian Helen at Bard: An Opera That Sent Me Back to Homer

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The Abduction of Helen

I left Bard SummerScape admiring Richard Strauss’s magnificent score, the exceptional singing, and the imaginative staging. What I didn’t expect was that the opera’s bewildering story would send me back to Homer, Euripides, and the enduring mystery of Helen of Troy.Continue Reading →

Loie Fuller: Magician of Light

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Jules Chéret, La Loïe Fuller (Folies-Bergère), 1893. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. CC0.

They worshipped her, they painted her, they imitated her, and then they forgot her. Loie Fuller, the 19th-century dancer who inspired an extraordinary body of sculpture, drawings, photographs, and color lithographs, was captured by artists in almost every conceivable position and creation.Continue Reading →