NEWS/FEATURESARAB TIMES, FRIDAY-SATURDAY, JANUARY 6-7, 2017

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Obit

‘A giant of music’

Maestro conductorPretre dies aged 92VIENNA, Jan 5, (Agencies): French maestro Georges Pretre, the preferred conductor of legendary opera singer Maria Callas, died Wednesday aged 92 after a career wielding the baton for many of the world’s top orchestras.

The Vienna Philharmonic, where he regularly con-ducted, said on its Facebook page that it was mourn-ing “our charming and dear honorary member Georges Pretre with whom we have performed for 50 years”.

Pretre died in Naves in southwest France where he owned a chateau, the town’s deputy mayor Brigitte Baux, who regularly organised events with the con-ductor, told AFP.

Born in northern France in 1924, Pretre entered the Paris Conservatoire aged 15 but went on to pursue

most of his career outside his homeland, from Chicago and the Metropolitan Opera of New York to La Scala in Milan and London’s Royal Philharmonic.

At the time of his death, he still had concerts at La Scala scheduled for 2017.

A judo blackbelt and lover of horseriding, Pretre spent his life in concert halls and opera houses but loved all types of music, having mingled with the

jazz scene in post-war Paris.“A giant of music has been lost today,” said Paris

Opera director Stephane Lissner.Pretre was notably the first “invited leader” from

1986-1991 of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Austrian capital’s second classical ensemble after the celebrated Philharmonic.

Pretre, who liked to say that he was himself Viennese, also twice conducted the prestigious New Year’s concert by the Philharmonic, in 2008 and 2010.

He last conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in 2013 at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris, with a repertoire including Ravel, Beethoven and Strauss.

In an interview in 2015, the bootmaker’s son told AFP he caught the “bug” for music at the age of seven and a half, when he heard an opera’s overture.

Also:LOS ANGELES: Carrie Fisher had a lot of fun on “The Ellen Show” over the years, including giving away “Star Wars” tickets and joking about her mom Debbie Reynolds moving in next door to her.

In a touching tribute to her friend Fisher, Ellen DeGeneres delivered a short speech on her show on Wednesday, before playing clips of some of her favorite moments from Fisher’s appearances.

“I wanna say something about my friend Carrie Fisher,” DeGeneres said. “I knew her for a long time. She’s been on the show many times, and the last time was just a month ago, and I loved when she was here. She made me laugh so hard, she was smart, she was funny, she was hilariously honest about herself and the world around her.”

The montage that followed showed the pair dis-cussing whether Fisher had truly embraced the char-acter of Princess Leia, to which she replied, “Embracing it? No it follows me around like a vague, exotic smell.”

Later Fisher and DeGeneres don Princess Leia buns and give away “Star Wars” tickets to passing fans, and then discuss Fisher living next door to her mother Debbie Reynolds, who died only one day after Fisher’s death, at the age of 84.

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NASHVILLE, Tennessee: As a teenager growing up in the 1950s, Steve North would look for the pink Cadillac outside a stone house on the outskirts of Nashville. If the car was there, Elvis was in the building.

Decades later, North bought the property and prac-ticed law at the unassuming former home of Col Tom Parker, the rough-around-the-edges manager who helped steer Elvis Presley to stardom.

Elvis’ old home-away-from-home is now on the brink of being torn down and replaced by a car wash. North has spent four years seeking a buyer who would preserve the building. In a city where real estate prices are booming, he found none willing to pay the market price while promising to keep the house intact.

Pretre

This Dec 9, 2016 photo released by the Metropolitan Opera shows Placido Domingo performing in Verdi’s ‘Nabucco’, at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Domingo, who turns 76 this month, is enjoying a triumph in Verdi’s third opera, which tells the story of the Babylonian tyrant Nebuchadnezzar and his sacking of the temple of Jerusalem. (AP)

Drake leads iHeartRadio nods

Domingo stars in ‘Nabucco’NEW YORK, Jan 5, (AP): After more than half a century as an oper-atic powerhouse, Placido Domingo might easily take success for granted. Instead, each time he storms onstage as the ruthless ruler in Verdi’s “Nabucco”, he feels he has “more than ever to prove”.

“Because there are no excuses right now,” Domingo said. “I have made a long and beautiful career, and if I go out there it’s because I’m doing it well. Otherwise people will say, ‘Why is he doing it,’ you know?”

“So there is always a reason to have butterflies,” he added, in an interview at the Metropolitan Opera.

Domingo, who turns 76 this month, is enjoying a triumph in Verdi’s third opera, which tells the story of the Babylonian tyrant Nebuchadnezzar and his sacking of the temple of Jerusalem. The final performance will be broadcast to movie theaters worldwide live in HD on Saturday.

Originally a tenor, Domingo began turning to baritone roles in 2009 as the high notes became elusive. Although his sound lacks the weight and colors of a true baritone, audi-ences still are eager to see him: His “Nabucco” performances at the Met, like most of his appearances, have sold out.

“I think it’s a perfect role,” Domingo said, because of the variety of vocal and dramatic challenges. “In the first scene, honestly, it’s very dif-ficult for the public to hear the bari-tone all the time. Because he’s sing-ing with the whole chorus, but you have to come out strong.

Duet“In the second act you have the

chance first with sextet, and then the big sing with the craziness. And then comes the bel canto, the duet, and it continues with the aria and cabaletta.”

“The craziness” Domingo refers to is based on a biblical account of Nebuchadnezzar temporarily losing his sanity and living in the wild. Audiences may be startled to see Domingo at one point get down and crawl on all fours.

“He was kind of confused ... he was walking on four legs like ani-mals,” Domingo said, “and that’s the reason I try to do it in the produc-tion.”

He also sings an entire aria — a plea to god for forgiveness — lying prone on his stomach, not the easiest feat for even a young singer.

“In one rehearsal I was just feeling ... all of a sudden, I just went and lay down and I tried it,” Domingo said.

“And I realize that I can sing it this way, and it will be like a prayer. I’m totally lost, god forgive me.”

The most famous number in the score is the stirring “Va, pensiero,” sung by a chorus of Hebrew slaves in Act 3. In Verdi’s day it became a ral-lying cry for Italian patriots seeking to free their country from Austrian rule.

James Levine, who is conducting the current performances, often has the chorus sing it twice, but that’s not guaranteed. “Like all encores, it sort of depends on audience response,” said Met spokesman Sam Neuman. So expect an encore during Saturday’s HD — but only if the applause in the house is sufficiently prolonged.

The HD broadcast of “Nabucco,” also starring soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska, mezzo Jamie Barton, tenor Russell Thomas and bass Dmitry Belosselskiy, will be shown starting at 12:55 pm Eastern on Saturday.

Also:NEW YORK: Drake leads the nomi-nations for the 2017 iHeartRadio Music Awards with 12, including male artist of the year, while elec-tronic duo The Chainsmokers has 11 nominations, including song of the year for “Closer” with Halsey.

iHeartMedia and Turner announced the nominees Wednesday. It was also announced that Bruno Mars will per-form at the fourth annual awards show, to be held March 5 in Los Angeles and televised on TBS, TNT and truTV, as well as simulcast on iHeartMedia stations.

This year’s show has been expand-ed to more than 30 categories. Other multiple nominees include twenty one pilots, Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Beyonce, Daya, Halsey, Nicky Jam and Sia.

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NEW YORK: President-elect Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that the album sales of Jackie Evancho, the teenage classical singer, have “sky-rocketed” since the announcement that she would perform at his inaugu-ration.

Not exactly, according to sales fig-ures.

According to Nielsen Music, which tracks album sales, Evancho sold 7,206 albums the week ending on Dec 15 (she announced she would sing the national anthem at the Inauguration on Dec 14). The follow-ing week, which ended on Dec 22, Evancho sold 13,788 albums, and the week after, ending on Dec 29, the 16-year-old sold 11,096 albums.

French actress Anouk Aimee (right), attends the funeral ceremony of her former husband French singer and songwriter Pierre Barouh, with Valerie Perrin (left), partner of French film director Claude Lelouch (unseen) on

Jan 4 in Paris. (AFP)

Corden Bruno

LOS ANGELES: James Corden says he feels like he has loved George Michael as long as he’s loved music.

The “Late Late Show” host paid tribute to the late singer on his program Tuesday night. He showed a 2011 skit with Michael that he did for a charity event in their native England. The skit featured Michael and Corden singing in a car and was a pre-cursor to Corden’s wildly popular “Carpool Karaoke” segments.

Corden says he showed the skit to Mariah Carey in order to convince her to appear in his first “Carpool Karaoke” seg-ment. Corden says Carey told him, “if it’s good enough for George, then it’s good enough for me.”

Michael was found dead in his home in England on Christmas Day. (AP)

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LOS ANGELES: Feeding a child a smashed banana wrapped in a tortilla and stabbing his error-ridden homework with a kitchen knife might not be great parenting, but Rachel Bloom from “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” proves that it’s pretty funny.

In a catchy musical number called “So Maternal,” which will feature in the upcom-ing Season 2 episode “Who Is Josh’s Soup Fairy?,” the show’s central character Rebecca Bunch channels David Bowie, ’80s boogie music, and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” to show everyone how good (or bad) she would be at parenting.

“Parenting ain’t harrowing, demanding or traumatic,” Bunch sings while bouncing down a suburban street. “Let’s face facts, moms say that when they’re not this good at it.” (RTRS)

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NEW YORK: Tool, Chance the Rapper and Phoenix are set to the headline the Governors Ball music festival in New York City this summer.

Founders Entertainment announced Wednesday that Lorde, Childish Gambino, Wu-Tang Clan, Rae Sremmurd and Phantogram will also perform during the three-day event on Randall’s Island Park from June 2-4.

Tickets go on sale Friday. The festival is in its seventh year.

The Governors Ball will mark Tool’s first NYC performance in 11 years. Other performers include Bleachers, Cage the Elephant, Flume, BANKS, Schoolboy Q, Marshmello, Franz Ferdinand, Wiz Khalifa, Charli XCX, Kehlani and Tove Lo. (AP)

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LOS ANGELES: Kim Kardashian has made her long-awaited return to social media, three months after going silent in the wake of being held up and robbed of millions of dollars in jewelry at a Paris hotel.

Kardashian posted a picture of her with husband Kanye West and their two chil-dren on Instagram on Tuesday and cap-tioned the photo, “family.” It was her first post on the platform since Oct 3. She also returned to Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook with a series of posts. She responded to a fan’s excitement about her return with the note, “I missed you guys!”

Variety

hospitalization in November. (AP)❑ ❑ ❑

LOS ANGELES: Mariah Carey says she was “mortified” in “real time” during her disastrous live performance moments before the ball dropped on ABC’s “Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve.”

Carey spoke to Entertainment Weekly in her first interview since the show in which she stumbled through her songs. At many points she stopped singing, even while a prerecorded vocal track played in the background.

Carey’s publicist blamed show producer Dick Clark Productions earlier this week for not addressing technical difficulties before the performance, including a malfunctioning earpiece. Carey reiterated that stance to EW and praised the late Dick Clark. (AP)

Kardashian was known to be ever-pres-ent on social media before the Paris inci-dent.

West and Kardashian have been the sub-ject of breakup rumors following West’s

Art

‘Kakizome’ contest

Some artists donot seek ‘fame’PARIS, Jan 5, (Agencies): “I love being famous,” the black US comedian Chris Rock once quipped. “It’s almost like being white.”

But a growing number of artists would rather have success without the encumbrance of fame.

From the street artist Banksy to the Italian literary phenomenon Elena Ferrante, a new brand of creator is a c t i v e l y rejecting the limelight and doing every-thing they can to avoid it.

Even first-time novelists, whose pub-lishers are often desper-ate for them to go out and promote their work, are thumbing their noses at celebrity.

One young French novelist, who writes under the pseudonym of Joseph Andras, rejected the country’s top prize for a first book last year because it threatened his anonymity.

Like Ferrante, whose Naples quartet has become a huge interna-tional bestseller, Andras refuses to be photographed and only does interviews via email.

“A baker makes bread, a plumb-er unblocks pipes and writers write,” he declared in his only interview, granted to the Communist newspaper L’Humanite. “Everything is in the book, I don’t really see what more I have to add.”

MotivationFerrante’s motivation was simi-

lar. “I simply decided once and for all, over 20 years ago, to liberate myself from the anxiety of notori-ety and the urge to be a part of that circle of successful people,” she told Vanity Fair magazine.

“Thanks to this decision I have gained a space of my own, a space that is free, where I feel active and present.... for those who love lit-erature, the books are enough,” she added.

But that hasn’t stopped her real identity becoming an almost obsessional focus of media atten-tion, with an Italian investigative journalist claiming last year to have unmasked her through fol-lowing the banking trail from her publishers.

The secrecy around the British artist Banksy has also spawned numerous theories about who he really is, with the latest positing that he was a member of the trip hop group Massive Attack, which, like him, emerged from the English city of Bristol.

While Ferrante’s editors contin-ue to refuse to confirm whether she is, as reports claim, the Roman translator Anita Raja, they con-demned the methods used to name her, telling AFP they were similar to those used to trace Mafia boss-es.

“It was as if she hadn’t the right to success without playing the game,” said her French editor Vincent Raynaud, of Gallimard.

US literature professor Philip Auslander, of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said that, by insisting on anonymity, Banksy and Ferrante were in some ways laying down the gauntlet to journalists “to take up the challenge to try to discover their identity.

“In literature, especially, we have the sense that... authors of fiction are somehow expressing themselves, which makes us want to know something about the per-son who produced the fiction,” he said.

And Auslander drew a distinc-tion between Ferrante and the late reclusive American writer J.D. Salinger and the pop band Daft Punk, who are never seen in public without their robot helmets.

Also:TOKYO: The air was tense in the Nippon Budokan arena in Tokyo on Thursday morning as nearly 5,000 contestants concentrated on perfecting each stroke during an annual calligraphy contest tradi-tionally held at the beginning of the new year.

The competition requires par-ticipants to write phrases or poems of increasing complexity with a traditional brush and black ink within an allotted 24 minutes.

Those taking part, aged from three to 93, were judged on the beauty of their strokes and the expression of their writing. The winners will be announced at a separate ceremony on Feb. 26.

Known as “Kakizome”, which means “first writings”, events to practise calligraphy are held in venues across Japan, during which people write auspicious characters or phrases meant to help strengthen one’s resolve and reso-lutions in the year ahead.

Rock

Music