Was it Kenneth Tynan who wrote that the opening line in Hamlet is the single most dramatic line ever written?
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"He had a gift for melody. Which is a rare, inexplicable talent to have," Randy Newman once said of Nilsson's easy way with complex melodies and counterpoint. "People like McCartney have it, Schubert, Elton John has it. Harry had that gift." In a 1968 interview John Lennon said of Harry Nilsson, “everything influences everything, Nilsson’s my favorite group.” McCartney mirrored the statement. In the same interview, the two confirm Nilsson is both their “favorite artist” and “favorite American group”. Later that day, when a journalist wondered what they thought about American music, Lennon replied, “Nilsson! Nilsson for president!”
Butterfly started as a short story, which was adapted to the stage by David Belasco. The play was seen by Puccini, who made the story what it was meant to be. But my 'favorite,' outside the divine, has to be the 1932 non-operatic film starring Cary Grant as Pinkerton and Sylvia Sydney as Cho-Cho San! She also played Fantine in the 1952 Les Miserables with Michael Rennie and Robert Newton
"In fact it is the simplest things that are the most tricky to do well. To read, for example. To be able to read exactly what is written without omitting anything that is written and at the same time without adding anything of one's own. To be able to capture the exact context of the words one is reading. To be able to read!" Jean-Louis Barrault
1995. To capitalize on the success of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Vintage brought out "Tell Me the Truth about Love: 10 Poems by W.H. Auden" It included Auden's 'Funeral Blues,' which had been read so beautifully by John Hannah in the movie. A small pamphlet really, it featured a photo of Hugh Grant on the cover. Someone with an inflated sense of self looked at the edition and scoffed. "Well that's disgusting! Putting a Hollywood star on the cover to sell the sublime poetry of Auden!" Next to see the book was Valerie Eliot, the widow of T.S. She picked up a copy, ran her finger over the picture of Grant and said "Oh, I don't think Wystan would have minded at all!"
Will Kempe Traditional, bawdy, loud and rustic. The Clown. Originated Dogberry in Much Ado and Peter in Romeo and Juliet. He probably played Bottom, Costard, and Lance Gobbo. And quite possibly the first Falstaff. Robert Armin Cynical, urban, witty, Beckettian. The Fool. Likely gave the first Feste, Touchstone, Lear's Fool, and the Porter in Macbeth. And quite possibly the first Iago. They marked two eras in Shakespeare's work. Armin likely gave the first Autolycus in The Winter's Tale, but who then gave the first Young Shepard, a role Shakespeare surely wrote with Kempe in mind.
Erik Satie's Vexations, composed in 1893-94, did not receive its debut until 1963. It consists of a single sheet of music, to be repeated 840 times. Tickets cost $5, with a nickel refunded for every 20 minutes attended. Only one person stayed for the full 18 hour, 40 minute performance. Another, who was there for the final stretch, when it was over called out "encore!"
