Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director and conductor, chiefly known for his operas. Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama, he described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, his compositions those of his period, are notable for their complex textures, rich harmonies and orchestration, the elaborate use of leitmotifs—musical phrases associated with individual characters, ideas, or plot elements. His advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and shifting tonal centres influenced the development of classical music.
His Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music. Wagner had his own opera house built, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which embodied many novel design features; the Ring and Parsifal were premiered here and his most important stage works continue to be performed at the annual Bayreuth Festival, run by his descendants. His thoughts on the relative contributions of music and drama in opera were to change again, he reintroduced some traditional forms into his last few stage works, including Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg; until his final years, Wagner's life was characterised by political exile, turbulent love affairs and repeated flight from his creditors. His controversial writings on music and politics have attracted extensive comment, since the late 20th century, where they express antisemitic sentiments; the effect of his ideas can be traced in many of the arts throughout the 20th century. Richard Wagner was born to an ethnic German family in Leipzig, who lived at No 3, the Brühl in the Jewish quarter.
He was baptized at St. Thomas Church, he was the ninth child of Carl Friedrich Wagner, a clerk in the Leipzig police service, his wife, Johanna Rosine, the daughter of a baker. Wagner's father Carl died of typhus six months after Richard's birth. Afterwards his mother Johanna lived with the actor and playwright Ludwig Geyer. In August 1814 Johanna and Geyer married—although no documentation of this has been found in the Leipzig church registers, she and her family moved to Geyer's residence in Dresden. Until he was fourteen, Wagner was known as Wilhelm Richard Geyer, he certainly thought that Geyer was his biological father. Geyer's love of the theatre came to be shared by his stepson, Wagner took part in his performances. In his autobiography Mein Leben Wagner recalled once playing the part of an angel. In late 1820, Wagner was enrolled at Pastor Wetzel's school at Possendorf, near Dresden, where he received some piano instruction from his Latin teacher, he struggled to play a proper scale at preferred playing theatre overtures by ear.
Following Geyer's death in 1821, Richard was sent to the Kreuzschule, the boarding school of the Dresdner Kreuzchor, at the expense of Geyer's brother. At the age of nine he was hugely impressed by the Gothic elements of Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischütz, which he saw Weber conduct. At this period Wagner entertained ambitions as a playwright, his first creative effort, listed in the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis as WWV 1, was a tragedy called Leubald. Begun when he was in school in 1826, the play was influenced by Shakespeare and Goethe. Wagner was determined to set it to music, persuaded his family to allow him music lessons. By 1827, the family had returned to Leipzig. Wagner's first lessons in harmony were taken during 1828–31 with Christian Gottlieb Müller. In January 1828 he first heard Beethoven's 7th Symphony and in March, the same composer's 9th Symphony. Beethoven became a major inspiration, Wagner wrote a piano transcription of the 9th Symphony, he was greatly impressed by a performance of Mozart's Requiem.
Wagner's early piano sonatas and his first attempts at orchestral overtures date from this period. In 1829 he saw a performance by dramatic soprano Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient, she became his ideal of the fusion of drama and music in opera. In Mein Leben, Wagner wrote, "When I look back across my entire life I find no event to place beside this in the impression it produced on me," and claimed that the "profoundly human and ecstatic performance of this incomparable artist" kindled in him an "almost demonic fire."In 1831, Wagner enrolled at the Leipzig University, where he became a member of the Saxon student fraternity. He took composition lessons with the Thomaskantor Theodor Weinlig. Weinlig was so impressed with Wagner's musical ability, he arranged for his pupil's Piano Sonata in B-flat major to be published as Wagner's Op. 1. A year Wagner composed his Symphony in C major, a Beethovenesque work performed in Prague in 1832 and at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1833, he began to work on an opera, Die Hochzeit, which he never
Los Angeles Opera
The Los Angeles Opera is an American opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth-largest opera company in the United States; the company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center. Spanish tenor and conductor Plácido Domingo has been General Director of LA Opera since 2003. To date, he has sung 27 different roles with the company including, most the baritone title role of Puccini's "Gianni Schicchi" as well as Giorgio Germont in Verdi's "La Traviata," Athanael in Massenet's Thaïs," Francesco Foscari in Verdi's I due Foscari, Pablo Neruda in Daniel Catan's Il Postino, Siegmund in Die Walküre, Vidal Hernando in Luisa Fernanda, the title roles in Simon Boccanegra, Tamerlano and Parsifal, he has conducted 16 different operas and numerous concerts with the company. American conductor James Conlon has been Music Director since 2006, succeeding Kent Nagano, who held the official title of "Principal Conductor" from 2001–2003 and became Music Director.
To date, Maestro Conlon has conducted 46 different operas for LA Opera, in addition to numerous concerts. Christopher Koelsch has been the President and Chief Executive Officer of LA Opera since 2012, he held the position of Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer since 2010, after serving as Vice President for Artistic Planning. He is the first year-round resident of Los Angeles to lead LA Opera since 2007. Grant Gershon became Resident Conductor as of the 2012–13 season, after serving as Associate Conductor/Chorus Master since 2007. Previous conductors in residence included William Vendice, Head of Music Staff/Chorus Master, from 1995 to 2007. LA Opera, inaugurated in 1986 with a production of Verdi's Otello starring Plácido Domingo, traces its roots back to the Los Angeles Civic Grand Opera, formed in 1948, it presented staged productions in a church located in Beverly Hills through the 1950s, funded by furniture maker Francesco Pace. Carol F. Henry, who has served as the President of the Board since 2005, became started volunteering for the Los Angeles Opera League in 1981.
Shortly after its third production at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the company abandoned its own production projects and recreated itself as the Music Center Opera Association by bringing opera from other cities to the Music Center, notably San Francisco Opera the New York City Opera. San Francisco Opera began presenting productions in Los Angeles in 1937 and continued to do so every fall until 1969; the NYCO brought productions to Los Angeles every fall from 1966 to 1982. In 1984, the Music Center Opera Association hired Peter Hemmings and gave him the task of creating a local opera company which would once again present its own productions; this led to the forming of Los Angeles Opera. Hemmings stepped down as General Director in 2000, with Plácido Domingo assuming leadership of the company following season. In November 2001, Edgar Baitzel was made director of artistic operations. Baitzel was appointed the company's Artistic Director in May 2003 and its chief operating officer in February 2006.
Baitzel died in March 2007. In September 2012, Christopher Koelsch was appointed Chief Executive Officer, he held the position of Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer since 2010, after serving as Vice President for Artistic Planning. The company offers productions in the standard operatic repertory as well as new and staged operas. In 2015, LA Opera presented a new production of "The Ghosts of Versailles" by John Corigliano, the first major U. S. staging of that opera in 20 years. In 2014, Renee Fleming starred in a production of Andre Previn's "A Streetcar Named Desire." In 2003, it presented the world premiere of the opera Nicholas and Alexandra, with music composed by Deborah Drattell and text by Nicholas von Hoffman. The 2010–2011 season opened with the world première of Daniel Catán's opera based on the drama film Il Postino with Domingo as the poet Pablo Neruda, Charles Castronovo in the title role and Grant Gershon conducting; the company has frequently turned to the cinema world for directors of its productions.
During the 2001–2002 season, it mounted a production of Wagner's Lohengrin, directed by Austrian actor Maximilian Schell and a double bill of Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, directed by filmmaker William Friedkin. Garry Marshall directed his own adaptation of Jacques Offenbach's La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein in 2005. Friedkin returned to direct Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos in 2004 and, in 2008, the first two parts of Puccini's Il Trittico, Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica, a production that featured Woody Allen making his operatic debut staging Gianni Schicchi. Highlights of the last decade have included Kurt Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny starring Anthony Dean Griffey, Audra McDonald and Patti LuPone, Rossini's Il Turco in Italia starring Nino Machaidze Simone Alberghini, Paolo Gavanelli and Thomas Allen, three major works by Benjamin Britten: The Turn of the Screw starring Patricia Racette, Albert Herring starring Alek Shrader in the title role, with Janis Kelly and Christine Brewer sharing the role of Lady Billows, "Billy Budd" starring Liam Bonner, Richard Croft and Greer Grimsley.
Other frequent and notable guests with the company have included Samuel Ramey, Violeta Urmana, Hildegard Behrens, Denyce Graves, Frederica von Stade, Sumi Jo, Deborah Voigt, James Morris, Rod Gilfry, Jennifer Larmore, Maria Ewing, Susan Graham and Fer
Children of a Lesser God (play)
Children of a Lesser God is a play by Mark Medoff, focusing on the conflicted professional and romantic relationship between Sarah Norman, a deaf former student, her teacher, James Leeds. The play, which premiered at the Mark Taper Forum, was produced on Broadway in 1980 and in the West End in 1981; the play won the 1980 Tony Award for Best Play. The play was specially written for the deaf actress Phyllis Frelich, based to some extent on her relationship with her husband Robert Steinberg, it was developed from workshops and showcased at New Mexico State University, with Frelich and Steinberg in the lead roles. It was seen by Gordon Davidson, Director of the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, who insisted that the male role needed to be played by a more experienced professional actor; the title comes from Tennyson: "For why is all around us here / As if some lesser god had made the world". Following a successful run at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, the Broadway production, directed by Gordon Davidson, opened on March 30, 1980 at the Longacre Theatre, where it ran for 887 performances.
The cast included Phyllis Frelich as John Rubinstein as James. David Ackroyd replaced Rubinstein. Deaf actress Elizabeth Quinn replaced Frelich, Linda Bove, another Deaf actress, best known to television audiences for her more-than-30-year-long run on Sesame Street, had a successful turn in the role as well. In 1981, the West End production ran at the Mermaid Theatre at the Albery Theatre, garnering three Olivier Awards; the production starred Elizabeth Quinn. Deaf actors from the UK were involved as understudies including Jean St Clair, Sarah Scott and Terry Ruane. A Broadway revival opened on April 11, 2018 at Studio 54, directed by Kenny Leon and starring Joshua Jackson, Lauren Ridloff, John McGinty and Anthony Edwards. In 1986, Medoff adapted the play for film directed by Randa Haines, starring Marlee Matlin and William Hurt. Awards1980 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play- John Rubinstein 1980 Tony Award for Best Play 1980 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Actor- John Rubinstein 1980 Drama Desk Award Outstanding New Play 1981 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play Botto, Louis.
Playbill: At This Theatre. Applause Books. ISBN 1-55783-566-7. "Olivier Winners 1981". The Official London Theatre Guide:. 2008. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved 2008-06-19. Children of a Lesser God at the Internet Broadway Database Children of a Lesser God at the Internet Broadway Database
Alexander Nevsky (film)
Alexander Nevsky is a 1938 historical drama film directed by Sergei Eisenstein. It depicts the attempted invasion of Novgorod in the 13th century by the Teutonic Knights of the Holy Roman Empire and their defeat by Prince Alexander, known popularly as Alexander Nevsky. Eisenstein made the film in association with Dmitri Vasilyev and with a script co-written with Pyotr Pavlenko, it was produced by Goskino via the Mosfilm production unit, with Nikolai Cherkasov in the title role and a musical score by Sergei Prokofiev, Alexander Nevsky was the first and most popular of Eisenstein's three sound films. In 1941 Eisenstein, Pavlenko and Abrikosov were awarded the Stalin Prize for the film. In 1978 the film was included in the world's 100 best motion pictures according to an opinion poll conducted by the Italian publishing house Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. Russia Beyond considers the film one of the 10 best Russian war films; the Teutonic Knights invade and conquer the city of Pskov with the help of the traitor Tverdilo and massacre its population.
In the face of resistance by the boyars and merchants of Novgorod, Nevsky rallies the common people of Novgorod and in a decisive Battle of the Ice, on the surface of the frozen Lake Peipus or Chudskoe, they defeat the Teutonic knights. The story ends in the retaken Pskov, where the ordinary foot-soldiers are set free, the surviving Teutonic knights will be held for ransom, Tverdilo is swarmed over by the vengeful people. A subplot throughout the film concerns Vasili Buslai and Gavrilo Oleksich, two famous warriors from Novgorod and friends, who become commanders of the Novgorod forces and who engage in a contest of courage and fighting skill throughout the Battle on the Ice in order to decide which of them will win the hand of Olga Danilovna, a Novgorod maiden whom both of them are courting. Vasilisa, the daughter of a boyar of Pskov killed by the Germans, joins the Novgorod forces as a front-line soldier, she and Vasili fight side by side. After both Gavrilo and Vasili have been wounded, Vasili publicly states that neither he nor Gavrilo was the bravest in battle: that honor goes to Vasilisa, that after her came Gavrilo.
Thus Gavrilo and Olga are united. Nikolai Cherkasov as Prince Aleksandr Nevsky Nikolay Okhlopkov as Vasili Buslaev Andrei Abrikosov as Gavrilo Oleksich Dmitri Orlov as Ignat, the master armorer Vasili Novikov as Pavsha, a voivode of Pskov Nikolai Arsky as Domash Tverdislavich, a Novgorod boyar Varvara Massalitinova as Amelfa Timoferevna, Buslay's Mother Valentina Ivashova as Olga Danilovna, a maid of Novgorod Aleksandra Danilova as Vasilisa, a maid of Pskov Vladimir Yershov as Hermann von Balk, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order Sergei Blinnikov as Tverdilo, the traitor of Pskov Ivan Lagutin as Anani, a Monk Lev Fenin as the Archbishop Naum Rogozhin as the Black-Hooded Monk Eisenstein made Alexander Nevsky, his first completed film in 10 years, during the Stalinist era, at a time of strained relations between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany; the film contains elements of obvious allegory that reflect the political situation between the two countries at the time of production. Some types of helmets worn by the Teutonic infantry resemble mock-ups of Stahlhelms from World War I.
In the first draft of the Alexander Nevsky script, swastikas appeared on the invaders' helmets. The film portrays Alexander as a folk hero and shows him bypassing a fight with the Mongols, his old foes, in order to face the more dangerous enemy; the film conveys anti-clerical and anti-Catholic messages. The knights' bishop's miter is adorned with swastikas, while religion plays a minor role on the Russian side, being present as a backdrop in the form of Novgorod's St. Nicholas Cathedral and the clerics with their icons during the victorious entry of Nevsky into the city after the battle; the film stemmed from a literary scenario entitled Rus, written by Pyotr Pavlenko, a Soviet novelist who conformed to socialist realist orthodoxy. The authorities could rely on Pavlenko, in his role of "consultant", to report any wayward tendencies on Eisenstein's part. Alexander Nevsky stresses as a central theme the importance of the common people in saving Russia, while portraying the nobles and merchants as "bourgeoisie" and enemies of the people who do nothing, a motif, employed.
While shooting the film, Eisenstein published an article in the official newspaper of record Izvestia entitled "Alexander Nevsky and the Rout of the Germans". He drew a specific parallel between Stalin; as a result, the Kremlin requested an advance screening and, without Eisenstein being consulted, his assistants showed the footage to the dictator. During the process of this screening, one of the reels, which featured a scene depicting a brawl among the populace of Novgorod, disappeared. Whether it was left behind in the editing room inadvertently or whether Stalin saw the footage and objected to it, the filmmakers decided to destroy the reel permanently, since it had not received Stalin's explicit approval; the picture was released in December 1938, became a great success with audiences: on 15 April 1939, Semen Dukelsky – the chairman of the State Committee for Cinematography – reported that it had been viewed by 23,000,000 people and was the most popular of the films made in recent times.
After 23 August 1939, when the USSR signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which provided for non-aggression a
Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz was a Jewish-American violinist. Many consider him to be the greatest violinist of all time. Born in Vilna, he moved as a teenager to the United States, where his Carnegie Hall debut was rapturously received, he was a virtuoso since childhood—Fritz Kreisler, another leading violinist of the twentieth century, said on hearing Heifetz's debut, "We might as well take our fiddles and break them across our knees."He had a long and successful performing career. Late in life, Heifetz became a champion of socio-political causes, he publicly advocated to establish 911 as an emergency phone number, crusaded for clean air. He and his students at the University of Southern California protested smog by wearing gas masks, in 1967 he converted his Renault passenger car into an electric vehicle. Heifetz was born into a Russian-Jewish family in Vilna, Lithuania part of the Russian Empire, his father, Reuven Heifetz, son of Elie, was a local violin teacher and served as the concertmaster of the Vilnius Theatre Orchestra for one season before the theatre closed down.
While Jascha was an infant, his father did a series of tests, observing how his son responded to his fiddling. This convinced him that Jascha had great potential, before Jascha was two years old, his father bought him a small violin, taught him bowing and simple fingering. At five years old, he started lessons with Leopold Auer, he was a child prodigy, making his public debut at seven, in Kovno playing the Violin Concerto in E minor by Felix Mendelssohn. In 1910 he entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory to study under Auer, he played in Germany and Scandinavia, met Fritz Kreisler for the first time in a Berlin private house, in a "private press matinee on May 20, 1912. The home was that of Arthur Abell, the pre-eminent Berlin music critic for the American magazine, Musical Courier. Among other noted violinists in attendance was Fritz Kreisler. After the 12-year-old Heifetz performed the Mendelssohn violin concerto, Abell reported that Kreisler said to all present,'We may as well break our fiddles across our knees.'"Heifetz visited much of Europe while still in his teens.
In April 1911, Heifetz performed in an outdoor concert in St. Petersburg before 25,000 spectators. In 1914, he performed with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Arthur Nikisch; the conductor was impressed, saying he had never heard such an excellent violinist. Heifetz and his family left Russia in 1917, traveling by rail to the Russian far east and by ship to the United States, arriving in San Francisco. On 27 October 1917, Heifetz played for the first time in the United States, at Carnegie Hall in New York, became an immediate sensation. Fellow violinist Mischa Elman in the audience asked "Do you think it's hot in here?", whereupon the pianist Leopold Godowsky, in the next seat, replied, "Not for pianists."In 1917, Heifetz was elected as an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the national fraternity for men in music, by the fraternity's Alpha chapter at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. As he was aged 16 at the time, he was the youngest person elected to membership in the organization.
Heifetz remained in the country and became an American citizen in 1925. A apocryphal story circulates that tells of an interaction with one of the Marx brothers: when he told the brother that he had been earning his living as a musician since the age of seven, he received the reply, "Before that, I suppose, you were just a bum."In 1954, Heifetz began working with pianist Brooks Smith, who would serve as Heifetz's accompanist for many years until he chose Dr. Ayke Agus as his accompanist, he was accompanied in concert for more than 20 years by Emmanuel Bay, another immigrant from Russia and a personal friend. Heifetz's musicianship was such that he would demonstrate to his accompanist how he wanted passages to sound on the piano, would suggest which fingerings to use. After the seasons of 1955–56, Heifetz announced that he would curtail his concert activity, saying "I have been playing for a long time". In 1958, he tripped in his kitchen and fractured his right hip, resulting in hospitalisation at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, a near fatal staphylococcus infection.
He was invited to play Beethoven at the United Nations General Assembly, entered leaning on a cane. By 1967, Heifetz had curtailed his concert performances. Heifetz was "regarded as the greatest violin virtuoso since Paganini," wrote Lois Timnick of the Los Angeles Times. "He set all standards for 20th-century violin playing...everything about him conspired to create a sense of awe," wrote music critic Harold Schonberg of the New York Times. "The goals he set still remain, for violinists today it's rather depressing that they may never be attained again," wrote violinist Itzhak Perlman. Virgil Thomson referencing Richard Wagner's reputed taste for silk next to his skin, called Heifetz's style of playing "silk underwear music", a term he did not intend as a compliment. Other critics argue that he infused his playing with feeling and reverence for the composer's intentions, his style of playing was influential in defining the way modern violinists approach the instrument. His use of rapid vibrato charged portamento, fast tempi, superb bow control coalesced to create a distinctive sound that makes Heifetz's playing recognizable to aficionados.
The violinist Itzhak Perlman, who himself is noted f
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress. Known for her fierce independence and spirited personality, Hepburn was a leading lady in Hollywood for more than 60 years, she appeared in a range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama, she received a record four Academy Awards for Best Actress. In 1999, Hepburn was named by the American Film Institute the greatest female star of Classic Hollywood Cinema. Raised in Connecticut by wealthy, progressive parents, Hepburn began to act while studying at Bryn Mawr College. After four years in the theatre, favorable reviews of her work on Broadway brought her to the attention of Hollywood, her early years in the film industry were marked with success, including an Academy Award for her third picture, Morning Glory, but this was followed by a series of commercial failures that led her to be labeled "box office poison" in 1938. Hepburn masterminded her own comeback, buying out her contract with RKO Radio Pictures and acquiring the film rights to The Philadelphia Story, which she sold on the condition that she be the star.
In the 1940s, she was contracted to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where her career focused on an alliance with Spencer Tracy. The screen partnership produced nine movies. Hepburn challenged herself in the latter half of her life, as she appeared in Shakespearean stage productions and tackled a range of literary roles, she found a niche playing middle-aged spinsters, such as in The African Queen, a persona the public embraced. Three more Oscars came for her work in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Lion in Winter, On Golden Pond. In the 1970s, she began appearing in television films, which became the focus of her career in life, she remained active into old age, making her final screen appearance in 1994 at the age of 87. After a period of inactivity and ill health, Hepburn died in 2003 at the age of 96. Hepburn famously shunned the Hollywood publicity machine, refused to conform to society's expectations of women, she was outspoken, assertive and wore trousers before it was fashionable for women to do so.
She was married as a young woman, but thereafter lived independently. A 26-year affair with her co-star Spencer Tracy was hidden from the public. With her unconventional lifestyle and the independent characters she brought to the screen, Hepburn epitomized the "modern woman" in the 20th-century United States, is remembered as an important cultural figure. Hepburn was born on May 12, 1907, in Hartford, the second of six children, her parents were Thomas Norval Hepburn, a urologist at Hartford Hospital, Katharine Martha Houghton, a feminist campaigner. Both parents fought for social change in the US: Thomas Hepburn helped establish the New England Social Hygiene Association, which educated the public about venereal disease, while the elder Katharine headed the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association and campaigned for birth control with Margaret Sanger; as a child, Hepburn joined her mother on several "Votes For Women" demonstrations. The Hepburn children were raised to exercise freedom of speech and encouraged to think and debate on any topic they wished.
Her parents were criticized by the community for their progressive views, which stimulated Hepburn to fight against barriers she encountered. Hepburn said she realized from a young age that she was the product of "two remarkable parents", credited her "enormously lucky" upbringing with providing the foundation for her success, she remained close to her family throughout her life. The young Hepburn was a tomboy who liked to call herself Jimmy, cut her hair short. Thomas Hepburn was eager for his children to use their minds and bodies to the limit, taught them to swim, dive, ride and play golf and tennis. Golf became a passion of Hepburn's, she loved swimming in Long Island Sound, took ice-cold baths every morning in the belief that "the bitterer the medicine, the better it was for you". Hepburn was a fan of movies from a young age, went to see one every Saturday night, she would put on plays and perform for her neighbors with friends and siblings for 50 cents a ticket to raise money for the Navajo people.
In April of 1921, Hepburn, 14, her brother Tom were visiting New York, staying with a friend of their mother's in Greenwich Village over the Easter break. On April 3, Hepburn discovered the body of her adored older brother dead from an apparent suicide, he had hanged himself. The Hepburn family denied it was suicide and maintained that Tom's death must have been an experiment that had gone wrong; the incident made the teenage Hepburn nervous and suspicious of people. She shied away from other children, dropped out of Oxford School, began receiving private tutoring. For many years she used Tom's birthday as her own, it was not until her 1991 autobiography, Me: Stories of My Life, that Hepburn revealed her true birth date. In 1924 Hepburn gained a place at Bryn Mawr College, she attended the institution to satisfy her mother, who had studied there, recalled disliking the experience. It was the first time she had been in school for several years, she was self-conscious and uncomfortable with her classmates.
She struggled with the scholastic demands of university, once was suspended for smoking in her room. Hepburn was drawn to acting. Once her marks had improved, she began performing regularly, she performed the lead role in a production of The Woman in the Moon in her senior year, the positive
Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry, FAIA is a Canadian-born American architect, residing in Los Angeles. A number of his buildings, including his private residence, have become world-renowned attractions, his works are cited as being among the most important works of contemporary architecture in the 2010 World Architecture Survey, which led Vanity Fair to label him as "the most important architect of our age". Gehry's best-known works include the titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum in Spain, it was his private residence in Santa Monica, that jump-started his career. Gehry is the designer of the future National Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial. Gehry was born Frank Owen Goldberg on February 28, 1929, in Toronto, Ontario, to parents Sadie Thelma and Irving Goldberg, his father was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Russian Jewish parents, his mother was a Polish Jewish immigrant born in Łódź. A creative child, he was encouraged by his grandmother, Leah Caplan, with whom he would build little cities out of scraps of wood. With these scraps from her husband's hardware store, she entertained him for hours, building imaginary houses and futuristic cities on the living room floor.
His use of corrugated steel, chain-link fencing, unpainted plywood and other utilitarian or "everyday" materials was inspired by spending Saturday mornings at his grandfather's hardware store. He would spend time drawing with his father. "So the creative genes were there", Gehry says. "But my father thought I was a dreamer, I wasn't gonna amount to anything. It was my mother, she would push me."He was given the Hebrew name "Ephraim" by his grandfather, but only used it at his bar mitzvah. In 1947, his family immigrated to the United States settling in California. Gehry got a job driving a delivery truck, studied at Los Angeles City College to graduate from the University of Southern California's School of Architecture. During that time, he became a member of Alpha Epsilon Pi. According to Gehry, "I was a truck driver in L. A. going to City College, I tried radio announcing, which I wasn't good at. I tried chemical engineering, which I wasn't good at and didn't like, I remembered. You know, somehow I just started wracking my brain about,'What do I like?'
Where was I? What made me excited? And I remembered art, that I loved going to museums and I loved looking at paintings, loved listening to music; those things came from my mother, who took me to museums. I remembered Grandma and the blocks, just on a hunch, I tried some architecture classes." Gehry graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture degree from USC in 1954. After graduating from college, he spent time away from the field of architecture in numerous other jobs, including service in the United States Army. In the fall of 1956, he moved his family to Cambridge, where he studied city planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, he left before completing the program and underwhelmed. Gehry's left-wing ideas about responsible architecture were under-realized, the final straw occurred when he sat in on a discussion of one professor's "secret project in progress"—a palace that he was designing for right-wing Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Gehry returned to Los Angeles to work for Victor Gruen Associates, to whom he had been apprenticed while at the USC School of Architecture.
In 1957 he was given the chance to design his first private residence at the age of 28, with friend and old classmate Greg Walsh. Construction was done by another neighbor across the street from Charlie Sockler. Built in Idyllwild, for his wife Anita's family neighbor Melvin David, "The David Cabin", shows features that were to become synonymous with work; the over 2,000 sq ft mountain retreat has unique design features with strong Asian influences, stemming from his earliest inspirations at the time like Shosoin Treasure House in Nara, among others. Beams protrude from the exterior sides, vertical grain douglas fir detail, exposed, unfinished ceiling beams are prominent features. In 1961, he moved to Paris. In 1962, Gehry established a practice in Los Angeles which became Frank Gehry and Associates in 1967 and Gehry Partners in 2001. Gehry's earliest commissions were all in Southern California, where he designed a number of innovative commercial structures such as Santa Monica Place and residential buildings such as the eccentric Norton House in Venice, California.
Among these works, Gehry's most notable design may be the renovation of his own Santa Monica residence. Built in 1920 and purchased by Gehry in 1977, the house features a metallic exterior wrapped around the original building that leaves many of the original details visible. Gehry still resides there. Other completed buildings designed by Gehry during the 1980s include the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro and the California Aerospace Museum at the California Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles. In 1989, Gehry was awarded the
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