22 Established 1961 Wednesday, July 10, 2019 Lifestyle Features

heir love shocked and scandalized the English upper “I wanted to make a mature love story, to explore how “He talks about jealousy and says that he doesn’t rec- Tclasses-two married women conducting an affair in they lived the relationship in regard to their marriages. ognize it as an emotion. ‘Wow!’ I thought as I read it. “If front of their husbands. What is more, the novel that They were both women who broke all the rules-in you need to know only one thing about a person, that is came out of their tempestuous relationship changed liter- Virginia’s case the whole form of the novel-so I had to him,” she added. Woolf clearly realized that Vita was ature forever. Now a movie tells the story of novelist break the rules of period drama in my own small way. essential for his wife’s creative life, Button believed. “You Virginia Woolf’s all-consuming passion for her fellow Period dramas are usually about a lovely chat in a lovely can understand how Vita was muse-like to Virginia writer and adventurer, Vita Sackville-West, who she room. I tried to make it be about how it felt.” Button also because she was incredibly captivating and earthy, and immortalized as the gender shifting, time travelling hero paints a sympathetic portrait of the pair’s husbands, the her body was there for her in a way that Virginia’s was- of her masterpiece, “Orlando”. rather uptight political theorist Woolf and the debonair n’t.” But their passion helped free her. Which is why theirs is a romance for our gender fluid bisexual writer and diplomat Harold Nicolson. “There are Vita’s son, the writer Nigel Nicolson, later described times, argues Chanya Button, the director of “Vita & some historians who say that Leonard Woolf was very Woolf’s “Orlando” as “the longest and most charming Virginia”. The aristocratic and bohemian poet Sackville- controlling. But I think he had an incredibly progressive love letter in literature”. Button used CGI in the film to West was already famous when Woolf met her in 1925, a approach to supporting her mental health. “In order to reproduce “the moments when Virginia broke from reali- bestselling writer and free spirit notorious for her bisexu- remain healthy Virginia needed a particular routine and ty”, often prompted by Vita, when her mind walked the al relationships with a string of other blue-blooded her husband was a huge part of that. thin “boundary between vulnerability and creativity. She socialites. Despite her brilliance, Woolf was by contrast wobbles but she also has a brilliant idea,” the director dogged by fragile mental health, tightly shepherded by ‘Captivating and earthy’ said, adding that she tried “to capture the full her husband Leonard Woolf, with whom she had founded Chanya Button, the British writer-director behind ‘Vita & “As for Vita and Harold Nicolson, they loved each oth- Technicolor” of the instances Woolf described, those the Hogarth Press, which published the poet T. S. Eliot Virginia’. er so much. There was a long and great marriage,” Button “vulnerable moments sometimes we are most alive”. It’s and the first English translations of Freud. Yet when they said. “They both had needs and desires outside the con- not the first time Virginia Woolf has been depicted on came together there was a spark that pushed both on to economist John Maynard Keynes and the trail-blazing fines of a heterosexual marriage and they let each other film. Nicole Kidman won a best actress Oscar for her create some of their very best work, Button told AFP. biographer Lytton Strachey. British filmmaker Button said have the freedom to have those relationships. They had portrayal of the groundbreaking novelist in the 2002 she wanted to make “an adult love story” about two their open, unconventional marriages, but they had feel- psychodrama “The Hours”. — AFP Free living and loving women “in the chaos and intoxication of falling in love ings about it. They weren’t robots. “Harold had struggles Virginia introduced Vita to the free-living and -loving and negotiating that through their marriages. “So many of with the relationship with Virginia,” and Leonard Woolf Bloomsbury set, the hugely influential group of artists the films about love I grew up with feel adolescent,” she suffered too, as Button discovered when she read one of and intellectuals that also included E.M Forster, the added. “They are all about the getting together. his letters.

hen Peter Gelb took over New to preserve. Backstage at the ancient WYork’s legendary Metropolitan Roman theatre, he joked and chatted with in 2006, one of his jobs the dancers from the Antonio Gades com- was to organise a farewell for Placido pany who were also taking part in the show. Domingo. But 13 years later the indefatiga- ble Spanish tenor is still “the king of opera”, Punishing schedule headlining France’s oldest musical festival But even for a man half his age, his at Orange at the weekend. “Since it was schedule is punishing. In July alone, as well unimaginable that he could possibly be as Orange, he will sing the title role in singing for much longer after an unmatched “Simon Boccanegra” at Baden-Baden in Met career that was soon to span four Germany, then star in Verdi’s “Giovanna decades of starring roles,” Gelb told AFP, d’Arco” (Joan of Arc) at the in “one of the responsibilities I was preparing , before moving on to Prague for for was Placido’s farewell.” With many , the international opera competi- Heather Unruh (right) and her family leave the court house after a pre-trial hearing in the Kevin singers’ voices withering by the time they tion he founded in 1993. Domingo will finish Spacey sexual assault case at Nantucket District Court in Nantucket, Massachusetts. — AFP hit their forties, the unfailingly modest 78- the month in Verona’s ancient theatre year-old has somehow managed to keep singing “La Traviata”. performing at the top level. “Instead of “Even though he is near 80, as far as retiring, Placido apparently discovered his Placido is concerned, there is still no hard own fountain of youth, reinventing himself stop in sight,” Gelb told AFP. “We recently as a baritone,” Gelb said. planned performances for him through the 2021/22 season. But that doesn’t stop him ‘Impossible to achieve again’ for pressing for even more roles in the “This past season, we held ceremonies future. “As Placido gently points out, the evin Spacey may avoid trial for sexual But when warned that manipulating the for Placido on several occasions in honor of house is always fuller when he is perform- assault, as the case against him suf- information on the phone could result in his five decades of leading roles on the ing on our stage... Indeed, it’s a successful K fered a serious blow Monday when charges being brought against him, Little In this file photo German film producer Artur ‘Atze’ Brauner stage of the Met-an accomplishment that is argument for letting Placido call the shots arrives on the red carpet upon arrival at the Berlinale impossible to imagine ever being achieved as far into the future as he wishes,” he his accuser declined to testify due to fear pled the fifth. Little’s mother Heather Palace for the opening ceremony of the 68th Berlinale film again,” Gelb added. Indeed the singer, who added. of self-incrimination. William Little Unruh, a television news anchor known in festival with the premiere of ‘Isle of Dogs’. — AFP was one of the Three Tenors alongside accused the actor of groping him in a the Boston area, admitted she had deleted and Jose Carreras, set a ‘Operaholic’ Massachusetts bar in July 2016. The actor, some potentially embarrassing photos new record in May by singing his 151th Glorying in being called an “operaholic” 59, was charged in January with indecent before giving the phone to the police but role. A month earlier he had celebrated his in the United States, where he has spent assault and battery. The Massachusetts said she had not erased anything related to 4,000th performance in a career that most of his later career as director general District Court judge for Nantucket, the the alleged assault. Spacey’s lawyer Alan stretches back 60 years. But Domingo of both the Washington and Los Angeles posh island community where the alleged Jackson insinuated that text messages from knows he has to look after himself, can- , Domingo has made more than 100 aggression took place, called on Little Little-who was a fan of the actor-that celling interviews after rehearsals on Friday albums and picked up 14 Grammy awards. Monday to testify. Spacey was not present implied his consent in the situation had in the southern French town of Orange to “Besides his record longevity, Placido’s in the court. been deleted. “This entire case is com- preserve his voice having recently pulled place in opera history is secure as one of But Little chose to plead the Fifth pletely compromised,” said Jackson. out of appearing in “La Traviata” in the greatest dramatic tenor voices of all Amendment, which allows citizens not to “This case needs to be dismissed and it . time,” Gelb said of the singer, who grew up testify so as not to incriminate themselves, needs to be dismissed today.” Although the He was in Orange for a “Spanish Night” in singing with his parents’ zarzuela after it was revealed his cell phone-a key judge did not make a decision, Spacey’s to celebrate zarzuela, the particularly company, playing the piano as an accom- piece of evidence in the case-may have defense team added it would promptly Hispanic music theatre genre which his par- panist to supplement his income. —AFP been compromised. Little has said he took request that the case be dropped. The ents-both singers themselves-did so much a smartphone video of the incident, which prosecution did not rule dropping the case, he says took place when he was an 18- but asked the judge for a week to decide. year-old busboy in a Nantucket bar and Spacey has insisted on his innocence in the restaurant. The smartphone images, which matter. The charges carry a penalty of up Little said he shared with a then-girlfriend to five years in prison. and a group of , allegedly show The allegation of sexual misconduct Spacey shoving his hand into the teen’s against the two-time Oscar winner was pants and fondling him. one of more than a dozen to emerge since But the phone-which the defense want- 2017 in the wake of the #MeToo move- ed to examine-has disappeared, as con- ment-in both the United States and firmed by Little and his parents, who were Britain-with devastating effect on his act- also called upon to testify Monday. A ing career. He was dropped from the cast police officer said he returned the phone of the popular “House of Cards” series and to the family after extracting all the infor- from a leading role in director Ridley mation but admitted he neglected to ask Scott’s “All the Money in the World,” for a receipt upon return. The family said Christopher Plummer was brought in as a they never received the phone. last-second replacement. — AFP Interrogated at length about what he did Spanish opera singer Placido Domingo, 78, performs on stage during the dress rehearsal of with the phone and the messages on it, ‘Spanish Night’ at the 150th Choregie in Orange. — AFP Little insisted that he had not deleted any- thing.

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