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Daphnis And Chloe

The new season of the National Opera opened this autumn with a ballet made up of four choreographic pieces united under the title of the most elaborate one, Daphnis and Chloe, a production staged by Gelu Barbu, a Romanian choreographer from the Diaspora. Gelu Barbu belongs

A Continent Dreamt By An Island

A talk with Gelu Barbu Each artist who fulfils his destiny up to the zenith of glory becomes the founder of an island nostalgic about the continent. The creator does not represent a boastful, empty oneness but a world within a world. His original formula is achieved thanks

Irinel Liciu - A Great Sensitivity And Its Fragility

I was touched and amazed to discover this skinny little girl, thin and long legged, who was doing her exercises in the ballet room with the concentration of a mature artist. The way she led her body had lost any trace of effort and it was describing meanings known only to

Interview With Magdalena Popa

Art critics acclaimed Magdalena Popa: She is one of the most dazzling stars of the century. She was regarded as a goddess of this art. Her small body expressed grace, a sort of ritual noblesse. Born in Bucharest, she graduated from the High School of Choreography and then

Boris Kneazev

I owe much of my setting up as an artist to Boris Kneazev as well. There’s another aspect to consider. One can work enormously in ballet and never get proper parts. Or, there’s even a more dramatic situation, when one gets these parts and realizes that one doesn’t

Anton Romanowsky

Romanowsky was active in our country after the First World War, with several interruptions. These interruptions were caused by a series of frictions with some of the managers at the Romanian Opera House. Then, between the two world wars, the social context (the economical

Vivat Profesores! - Through The Looking Glass Of Time

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

From Marriage In the Carpathians To Romeo and Juliet

1921. End of the year. The Romanian State Opera House was established in Bucharest. 1938. The month of August. The young institution was holding, through its representatives, master Floria Capsali to its bosom, who was employed on that occasion to nurture the destiny of

The Dialectics Of National Self-Criticism

Some time in the autumn of 1994, Sorin Alexandrescu asked in an interview in 22 magazine why, in the canonical battle between the various radical-democrat and nationalist structures of the opposition (and of the government), more attention is not paid to the real traditions

From The Country Of Jackasses

III. The Culture of Jackasses When an ass leaves his village to go live in the city a wonderful change occurs in him: his asininity leaves the body and sets straight into the soul. In donkey parlance this means the respective jackass becomes cultivated. Thus, an educated

Notes Of A Hypochondriac

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

The Sadness In The Eyes Of The Immigrant

The Romanians from Down Under To my Victoria from the South Pacific IslandsKo te mana o tenei matenga whetu aianeE poturi i ro o te rangi e piki mai* In Aotearoa (New Zealand), I met happy Romanians. Their happiness was either blended with sadness, or boosted up by it.