Daily Archives: May 12, 2009

The Church Militant, the Church Demolished

So late tonight arrives word that “the Mayor’s Agent” has decided the fate of the building that is home to the Third Church of Christ Scientist, a 16th St. NW structure that is unloved by its congregants, but considered a … Continue reading

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Filed under Architecture

Looking East, to the operatic horizon

        One of the more pernicious habits of blinkered historical thinking is to imagine that all exotic lands exist in isolation from each other, and have substance only in relation to our frame of reference. The Smithsonian’s The Tsars … Continue reading

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Filed under Culture, Music, Opera

Mahler, minus opera

Opera News has placed online my recent story about Mahler, who despite being one of the greatest vocal composers of all time, never wrote an opera (a few, minor bits of juvenalia notwithstanding).

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Filed under Music, Opera

Peter Brown at the Library of Congress

            The glasses slowly sliding down the nose of Peter Brown, one of the grandest old scholars of late antiquity, threatened to upstage his Library of Congress lecture. Brown is a recipient of the Library’s richly endowed Kluge Prize and … Continue reading

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Filed under Culture