1.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
2.
Film director
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A film director is a person who directs the making of a film. Generally, a film director controls a films artistic and dramatic aspects, the director has a key role in choosing the cast members, production design, and the creative aspects of filmmaking. Under European Union law, the director is viewed as the author of the film, the film director gives direction to the cast and crew and creates an overall vision through which a film eventually becomes realized, or noticed. Directors need to be able to mediate differences in creative visions, there are many pathways to becoming a film director. Some film directors started as screenwriters, cinematographers, film editors or actors, other film directors have attended a film school. Some outline a general plotline and let the actors dialogue, while others control every aspect. Some directors also write their own screenplays or collaborate on screenplays with long-standing writing partners, some directors edit or appear in their films, or compose the music score for their films. Film directors create a vision through which a film eventually becomes realized/noticed. Realizing this vision includes overseeing the artistic and technical elements of production, as well as directing the shooting timetable. This entails organizing the crew in such a way as to achieve their vision of the film. This requires skills of leadership, as well as the ability to maintain a singular focus even in the stressful. Moreover, it is necessary to have an eye to frame shots and to give precise feedback to cast and crew, thus. Thus the director ensures that all involved in the film production are working towards an identical vision for the completed film. The set of varying challenges he or she has to tackle has been described as a jigsaw puzzle with egos. It adds to the pressure that the success of a film can influence when, omnipresent are the boundaries of the films budget. Additionally, the director may also have to ensure an intended age rating, thus, the position of film director is widely considered to be a highly stressful and demanding one. It has been said that 20-hour days are not unusual, under European Union law, the film director is considered the author or one of the authors of a film, largely as a result of the influence of auteur theory. Auteur theory is a film criticism concept that holds that a directors film reflects the directors personal creative vision
3.
Jules Massenet
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Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are Manon and Werther and he also composed oratorios, ballets, orchestral works, incidental music, piano pieces, songs and other music. While still a schoolboy, Massenet was admitted to Frances principal music college, there he studied under Ambroise Thomas, whom he greatly admired. After winning the top musical prize, the Prix de Rome, in 1863, he composed prolifically in many genres. Massenet had a sense of the theatre and of what would succeed with the Parisian public. Despite some miscalculations, he produced a series of successes that made him the composer of opera in France in the late 19th. Like many prominent French composers of the period, Massenet became a professor at the Conservatoire and he taught composition there from 1878 until 1896, when he resigned after the death of the director, Ambroise Thomas. Among his students were Gustave Charpentier, Ernest Chausson, Reynaldo Hahn, by the time of his death, Massenet was regarded by many critics as old-fashioned and unadventurous although his two best-known operas remained popular in France and abroad. After a few decades of neglect, his works began to be favourably reassessed during the mid-20th century, Massenet was born at Montaud, then an outlying hamlet and now a part of the city of Saint-Étienne, in the Loire. He was the youngest of the four children of Alexis Massenet and his second wife Eléonore-Adelaïde née Royer de Marancour, Massenet senior was a prosperous ironmonger, his wife was a talented amateur musician who gave Jules his first piano lessons. By early 1848 the family had moved to Paris, where settled in a flat in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Massenet was educated at the Lycée Saint-Louis and, from either 1851 or 1853 and his biographer Demar Irvine dates the audition and admission as January 1853. Both sources agree that Massenet continued his education at the lycée in tandem with his musical studies. At the Conservatoire Massenet studied solfège with Augustin Savard and the piano with François Laurent and he pursued his studies, with modest distinction, until the beginning of 1855, when family concerns disrupted his education. Alexis Massenets health was poor, and on advice he moved from Paris to Chambéry in the south of France. On his return he lodged with relations in Montmartre and resumed his studies, the familys finances were no longer comfortable, and to support himself Massenet took private piano students and played as a percussionist in theatre orchestras. His work in the pit gave him a good working knowledge of the operas of Gounod and other composers, classic. He gained some work as a piano accompanist, in the course of which he met Wagner who, in 1861 Massenets music was published for the first time, the Grande Fantasie de Concert sur le Pardon de Ploërmel de Meyerbeer, a virtuoso piano work in nine sections
4.
Royal Opera House
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The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is referred to as simply Covent Garden. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, originally called the Theatre Royal, it served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented, a year later, Handels first season of operas began. Many of his operas and oratorios were written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there. The current building is the theatre on the site following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1856. The façade, foyer, and auditorium date from 1858, the main auditorium seats 2,256 people, making it the third largest in London, and consists of four tiers of boxes and balconies and the amphitheatre gallery. The proscenium is 12.20 m wide and 14.80 m high, the main auditorium is a Grade I listed building. The letters patent remained in the possession of the patentees heirs until the 19th century, in 1728, John Rich, actor-manager of the Dukes Company at Lincolns Inn Fields Theatre, commissioned The Beggars Opera from John Gay. In addition, a Royal Charter had created a fruit and vegetable market in the area, at its opening on 7 December 1732, Rich was carried by his actors in processional triumph into the theatre for its opening production of William Congreves The Way of the World. Despite the frequent interchangeability between the Covent Garden and Drury Lane companies, competition was intense, often presenting the plays at the same time. Rich introduced pantomime to the repertoire, himself performing and a tradition of seasonal pantomime continued at the modern theatre, in 1734, Covent Garden presented its first ballet, Pygmalion. Marie Sallé discarded tradition and her corset and danced in diaphanous robes, george Frideric Handel was named musical director of the company, at Lincolns Inn Fields, in 1719, but his first season of opera, at Covent Garden, was not presented until 1734. His first opera was Il pastor fido followed by Ariodante, the première of Alcina, there was a royal performance of Messiah in 1743, which was a success and began a tradition of Lenten oratorio performances. From 1735 until his death in 1759 he gave regular seasons there and he bequeathed his organ to John Rich, and it was placed in a prominent position on the stage, but was among many valuable items lost in a fire that destroyed the theatre on 20 September 1808. In 1792 the architect Henry Holland rebuilt the auditorium, within the shell of the building but deeper and wider than the old auditorium. Rebuilding began in December 1808, and the second Theatre Royal, the Old Price Riots lasted over two months, and the management was finally forced to accede to the audiences demands. During this time, entertainments were varied, opera and ballet were presented, kemble engaged a variety of acts, including the child performer Master Betty, the great clown Joseph Grimaldi made his name at Covent Garden
5.
Covent Garden
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Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martins Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and with the Royal Opera House. The area was settled in the 7th century when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic. By 1200 part of it had been walled off by Westminster Abbey for use as arable land, referred to as the garden of the Abbey and Convent, and later the Covent Garden, it was seized by Henry VIII and granted to the Earls of Bedford in 1552. The 4th Earl commissioned Inigo Jones to build fine houses to attract wealthy tenants. Jones designed the Italianate arcaded square along with the church of St Pauls, the design of the square was new to London and had a significant influence on modern town planning, acting as the prototype for new estates as London grew. By 1654 a small open-air fruit-and-vegetable market had developed on the side of the fashionable square. Gradually, both the market and the area fell into disrepute, as taverns, theatres, coffee-houses. By the 18th century it had become a well-known red-light district, an Act of Parliament was drawn up to control the area, and Charles Fowlers neo-classical building was erected in 1830 to cover and help organise the market. The market grew and further buildings were added, the Floral Hall, Charter Market, by the end of the 1960s traffic congestion was causing problems, and in 1974 the market relocated to the New Covent Garden Market about three miles south-west at Nine Elms. With the postcode WC2, Covent Garden falls within the London boroughs of Westminster and Camden, the area has been served by the Piccadilly line at Covent Garden tube station since 1907, the journey from Leicester Square, at 300 yards, is the shortest in London. What would become the Strand on the boundary of the future Covent Garden was used during the Roman period as part of a route to Silchester. Excavations in 2006 at St Martin-in-the-Fields revealed a late Roman grave and these revealed Covent Garden as the centre of a trading town called Lundenwic, developed around 600 AD, which stretched from Trafalgar Square to Aldwych. Alfred the Great gradually shifted the settlement into the old Roman town of Londinium from around 886 AD onwards, leaving no mark of the old town, a document from 1200 AD mentions a walled garden owned by the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of St Peter, Westminster. A later document, dated between 1250 and 1283, refers to the garden of the Abbot and Convent of Westminster. By the 13th century this had become a 40-acre quadrangle of mixed orchard, meadow, pasture and arable land and this is how it was recorded from then on. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540, Henry VIII took the land belonging to Westminster Abbey for himself and his son, Edward VI, granted it to John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford, in 1552. The Russell family, who in 1694 were advanced in their peerage from Earl to Duke of Bedford, held the land until 1918
6.
J. D. Salinger
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Jerome David J. D. Salinger was an American writer who is known for his widely-read novel, The Catcher in the Rye. Following his early success publishing short stories and Catcher in the Rye and he published his final original work in 1965 and gave his last interview in 1980. Salinger was raised in Manhattan and began writing stories while in secondary school. Several were published in Story magazine in the early 1940s before he serving in World War II. In 1948, his acclaimed story A Perfect Day for Bananafish appeared in The New Yorker magazine. In 1951, his novel The Catcher in the Rye was a popular success. His depiction of adolescent alienation and loss of innocence in the protagonist Holden Caulfield was influential, the novel remains widely read and controversial, selling around 250,000 copies a year. The success of The Catcher in the Rye led to public attention, Salinger became reclusive, publishing new work less frequently. His last published work, a novella entitled Hapworth 16,1924, in 1996, a small publisher announced a deal with Salinger to publish Hapworth 16,1924 in book form, but amid the ensuing publicity the release was indefinitely delayed. Salinger died of natural causes on January 27,2010, at his home in Cornish, in November 2013, three unpublished stories by Salinger were briefly posted online. One of the stories, The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls, is said to be a prequel to The Catcher in the Rye, jerome David Salinger was born in New York City, on New Years Day,1919. His father, Sol Salinger, sold kosher cheese, and was from a Jewish family of Lithuanian descent, his father having been the rabbi for the Adath Jeshurun congregation in Louisville, Kentucky. Salingers mother, Marie, was born in Atlantic, Iowa, of Scottish, German, and Irish descent, Salinger did not learn that his mother was not of Jewish ancestry until just after he celebrated his bar mitzvah. His only sibling was his older sister Doris, in youth, Salinger attended public schools on the West Side of Manhattan. Then in 1932, the moved to Park Avenue, and Salinger was enrolled at the McBurney School. At McBurney, he managed the team, wrote for the school newspaper. He showed a talent for drama, though his father opposed the idea of J. D. s becoming an actor. Salinger had trouble fitting in at his new school and took measures to conform and his parents then enrolled him at Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania
7.
Werther
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Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann. It is loosely based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, earlier examples of operas using the story were made by Kreutzer and Pucitta. Massenet started composing Werther in 1885, completing it in 1887 and he submitted it to Leon Carvalho, the director of the Paris Opéra-Comique, that year, but Carvalho declined to accept it on the grounds that the scenario was too serious. Werther received its premiere on 16 February 1892 at the Imperial Theatre Hofoper in Vienna, the French-language premiere followed in Geneva on 27 December 1892. The United States premiere with the Metropolitan Opera took place in Chicago on 29 March 1894 and then in the companys main house in New York City three weeks later. The UK premiere was a performance at Covent Garden, London, on 11 June 1894 with Emma Eames as Charlotte, Sigrid Arnoldson as Sophie. Werther is still performed around the world and has been recorded many times. Although the role of Werther was written for a tenor, Massenet adjusted it for a baritone and it is very occasionally performed in this version, in which the changes affect only the vocal line for the title character. There are no changes to the words, to the lines for other characters. 2 flutes,2 Oboes,2 Clarinets in B-flat and A, Alto Saxophone,2 Bassoons,4 Horns in F,2 Trumpets,3 Trombones, Tuba, Timpani, Percussion, Harp, Strings. Time, Within the period July to December, in an year in the 1780s. In July, the widowed Bailiff, is teaching his six youngest children a Christmas carol and his drinking companions, Johann and Schmidt, arrive as Charlotte, the eldest daughter, dresses for a ball. Since her fiancé Albert is away, she is to be escorted by Werther, Werther arrives, and watches as Charlotte prepares her young siblings supper, just as her mother had before she died. He greets her and they leave for the ball, Albert returns unexpectedly after a six-month trip. He is unsure of Charlottes intentions and disappointed not to find her at home and he leaves after promising to return in the morning. After an orchestral interlude, Werther and Charlotte return very late and his declaration of love is interrupted by the announcement of Alberts return. Charlotte recalls how she promised her mother she would marry Albert. It is three months later, and Charlotte and Albert are now married and they walk happily to church to celebrate the ministers 50th wedding anniversary, followed by the disconsolate Werther
8.
62nd Berlin International Film Festival
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The 62nd annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 9 to 19 February 2012. British film director Mike Leigh was the President of the Jury, the first five films to be screened in the competition were announced on 19 December 2011. American actress Meryl Streep was presented with the Honorary Golden Bear on 14 February, benoît Jacquots film Les adieux à la reine was announced as the opening film. The Golden Bear for Best Film went to the Italian film Caesar Must Die, directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, der Spiegel said it was a very conservative selection. Der Tagesspiegel criticised the outcome, The jury shunned almost all the films that were admired or hotly debated at an otherwise pretty remarkable festival. Paolo Taviani said We hope that when the film is released to the public that cinemagoers will say to themselves or even those around them. That even a prisoner with a sentence, even a life sentence, is. Vittorio Taviani read out the names of the cast. de 62nd Berlin International Film Festival 2012
9.
India Song
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India Song is a 1975 French drama film directed by Marguerite Duras. India Song stars Delphine Seyrig, Michael Lonsdale, Mathieu Carrière, Claude Mann, Vernon Dobtcheff, the film centres on Anne-Marie, the promiscuous wife of the French ambassador in India, and was based on an unproduced play written by Duras. Although set in India, the film was mostly on location in a mansion in Paris. The film was followed by a sequel Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta désert in 1976, Anne-Marie Stretter is the wife of the French ambassador in India in the 1930s. Growing bored with the lifestyle she leads, she begins to compulsively sleep with other men to alleviate her situation. The Vice-Consul of Lahore fails in his attempts to begin an affair with her. Her husband knows of her indiscretions, but is tolerant of her promiscuity, the script for India Song was based on an unproduced play which Marguerite Duras finished in July 1972. The play had been commissioned for the Royal National Theatre by Peter Hall, Duras had only visited India briefly in her teens, but chose to not watch any photographs from Calcutta while she worked on India Song, preferring to imagine it all. The film cost 254,542 francs to produce, of which 250,000 came from the CNC, dominique Sanda was the first choice for the leading role, but dropped out and was replaced by Seyrig. Finding the main location took several months, eventually Duras chose the Palais Rothschild in Boulogne, which she had seen during a walk, the Rothschild family had abandoned the building after World War II and it had started to dilapidate. Other scenes were shot at the Grand Trianon in Versaille, filming started May 13,1974 and lasted two months. India Song was shown as part of the 1975 New York Film Festival and it was released in France on June 4,1975. Vincent Canby, writing for The New York Times, reviewed the film in a light, finding that it was aesthetically pleasing. Canby described India Song as no content and all style, although he felt that Seyrigs portrayal of Anne-Marie was marvelous to contemplate, clarke Fountain, reviewing the film for Allrovi, rated it four out of five stars. India Song was nominated for three César Awards in 1976—Best Music Written for a Film for Carlos dAlessio, Best Sound for Michel Vionnet, however, the film did not win in any of the nominated categories. It was Frances submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 48th Academy Awards, however, he acknowledges that opinions are markedly divided on the film and that viewers will either find it hypnotically seductive or maddeningly pretentious. Michael Lonsdale considers his part to be his most favorite role, london, Victor Gollancz Ltd. pp. 292–295. India Song at the Internet Movie Database
10.
Anna Karina
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Anna Karina is a Danish-French film actress, director and screenwriter who has spent most of her working life in France. She is known as a muse of the director Jean-Luc Godard and her notable collaborations with Godard include The Little Soldier, A Woman Is a Woman, Vivre sa vie, and Alphaville. With A Woman Is a Woman, Karina won the Best Actress award at the Berlin Film Festival, karinas mother was a dress shop owner and her father was a ships captain who left the family a year after she was born. She lived with her grandparents for three years, until she was four. She spent the four years in foster care when she returned to live with her mother. She has described her childhood as terribly wanting to be loved and she began her career in Denmark, where she sang in cabarets and worked as a model playing in commercials. At age 14, she appeared in a Danish short film by Ib Schmedes and she studied dance and painting in Denmark and for a while made a living selling her paintings. In 1958, after a row with her mother, she hitchhiked to Paris, Karina was 17 when she arrived in Paris—poor and unable to speak French. Living on the streets, she got a break while sitting at the cafe Les Deux Magots and she was approached by a woman from an advertisement agency who asked her to do some photos. She became a fashion model, meeting Pierre Cardin and Coco Chanel. Chanel helped her devise her professional name, Anna Karina, Karina performed, uncredited, in a 1959 soap advertisement that was included near the end of Guy Debords On the Passage of a Few Persons Through a Rather Brief Unity of Time. The image was accompanied by Debords voice-over, The advertisements during intermissions are the truest reflection of an intermission from life, Jean-Luc Godard, then a film critic for Cahiers du cinéma, first saw Karina in a series of Palmolive ads in a bathtub covered in soapsuds. He was casting his debut film, Breathless. He offered her a part in the film, but she refused when he mentioned that there would be a nude scene. When Godard questioned her refusal, mentioning the supposed nudity in the Palmolive ads, she is said to have replied, I was wearing a bathing suit in those ads — the soapsuds went up to my neck. It was in mind that I was undressed. In the end, the character Godard reserved for Karina did not appear in the film, the next year, however, Godard offered her a role in Le Petit Soldat. Karina, who was still under 21, had to persuade her mother to sign the contract for her
