BERLIN

I first saw Cristina Hamel when I was a petit rat and I would sneak a look at the soloists during rehearsals, crouching behind a pillar. I remember her rehearsing unrelentingly a diagonal of pirouettes that wouldn't turn out well, in Act II of Swan Lake. I was admiring

A superstar of Romanian ballet in its golden era, when the light coming from the East would fashion great interpreters, Gabriel Popescu began the study of dance with the maestra Floria Capsali. He was hired by the Bucharest Opera in 1948, when he was 16, and in 1949 he was

There are chances in life. I have made mention of it before and will not hesitate to repeat it. To some of them we turn a blind eye; for others we may knowingly not have the just power of judgment and pondering. Or, that of turning something to good account. Floria Capsali

Do Romanians look in a particular way, precisely as Romanians, and not merely as people of their own times? The answer to such a question of image, apparently simpler than the one to the proper being of the Romanians, is actually much more difficult. And this basically because

The other Monday walking on Victoriei Road I met a friend. It is a well-known fact that today any guy you treat to a glass of wine at Fialkowsky's or who is in the delightful habit of bumming two or three lei from you is called a friend. Last year, this guy borrowed

When Mark Twain published the elaborate account of his Old World tour, The Innocents Abroad, America was still young, as a nation, and not yet proud of its culture. To avoid any tasteless outcry of admiration, driven by the contact with the vestiges of lost civilizations

excerpt It's lunch time. Instinctively, I make for Calea Victoriei, where this hour is set for the fashionable to meet between the Royal Palace and [Elisabeta] Boulevard, as on rue Vivienne during the Restoration. The beautiful shops that border the narrow sidewalks

RECORDINGS WITH ORCHESTRAS ABROAD Orchestra Author Work Company 1. Radio Berlin Orchestra Haydn Symphonies 94, 103 CD Electrecord 2. Radio Berlin Orchestra Rossini – Respighi, de Falla La boutique fantasque, LPElectrecord The Three-Cornered Hat, Suites 1 and 2 3. Radio

With Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Horia Andreescu endowed his own anniversary (50 years of life, which is both little and a lot in the life of a conductor) with a well-deserved brilliancy. On the other hand, while defining his assuredness, the merits of a 27-year career

Schwerin Founded by Heinrich der Lowe in 1160, the city today is worthy of its eight-century tradition. It abounds in vestiges – proudly and understandingly nurtured – of a history that is comprehensive in what regards the cultivation of music, too. The notes that I

One of the most important orchestras in Europe. This is how a Spanish newspaper described the Romanian Radio-Television Orchestra after a concert when it opened the 1993 Santander festival, an international get-together rounded off this year by the Scala Orchestra under

Born: October 18, 1946 in Brasov, Romania Studies: MusicHigh School in Brasov; Academy of Music, Bucharest (Professor Constantin Bugeanu – conducting, Professor Stefan Niculescu – composition); Academy of Music, Vienna (Professors: Hans Swarowsky and Karl Oesterreicher;Mastership