Monster Mash: A theater for Sondheim; Rolando Villazón returns; banana museum has to split
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--His name in lights: A Broadway theater -- the Henry Miller -- will be renamed after Stephen Sondheim, the latest in a series of tributes celebrating the composer-lyricist’s 80th birthday. (Bloomberg)
--Back in action: An adoring audience at the Vienna Staatsoper welcomed Mexican tenor Rolando Villazón, who returned to the stage as Nemorino in Donizetti’s ‘The Elixir of Love’ after a long hiatus following surgery to remove a cyst from his vocal chords. (Associated Press)
--Out of action: Boston Symphony Orchestra music director James Levine will miss his final performances of the season because of chronic back problems. (Boston Globe)
--Night on the town: After catching a matinee the day before, First Lady Michelle Obama, her daughters and mother continued their New York theater-hopping with a visit to an evening preview of the kooky, spooky musical ‘The Addams Family.’ (Playbill)
--Hanging out: The first Art Handling Olympics gives a vital but unsung part of the art world -- the workers who pack, unpack and install precious pieces -- a chance to show off their skillls, vent a little and drink a lot . (New York Times)
--Going bananas: Ken Bannister, founder of the International Banana Club and Museum in Hesperia, must find a new home for his 17,000-item trove -- the Guinness World Record holder for ‘world’s largest collection devoted to any one fruit’ -- because his city-owned display space is going to be used for a local historian’s artifacts. (Wall Street Journal)
--Time of grief: Family and friends mourn the loss of Norman Schureman, an instructor at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design, who was shot at a party in Westlake Village. (Los Angeles Times)
Also in the L.A. Times: Art critic Christopher Knight reviews ‘Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917’ at the Art Institute of Chicago; pianist Emanuel Ax begins a 10-day residency with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; scholars say artists’ renderings of the Last Supper show the supper guests’ serving sizes have been growing for a thousand years.
-- Karen Wada
Above: After a long hiatus, tenor Rolando Villazón returned to the stage in Donizetti’s ‘The Elixir of Love’ in Vienna. Credit: Axel Zeininger / AFP/Getty Images