Elegant Survival

An Oscar-nominated film made beautifully with a low budget in eastern Europe, Zelary portrays the dangers of living under an oppressive regime. Nazis and then communists figure large in this touching, gripping movie from 2003. Subtitled.

A master dyer who lived and worked in the Danube Valley of Austria, Aloys Zötl was a major talent who painted idealised fauna set amid stylistic flora in his spare time. Zötl's 12" X 20" watercolour paintings were not exhibited until long after his death in 1887, and that happy 1955 event at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris we owe to the ministrations of a descendant. Since his fantastic zoological representations were discovered by art-aficionados, Zötl's works have been collected by Alix de Rothschild, B. Fringhiam, Jean Lenthal, Julio Cortázar, Louis Amic, Paule Cailac, and Pierre Balmain; Aloys Zötl was written about by Julio Cortázar and Giovanni Mariotti, whose treatise on the Austrian painter was published by Franco Maria Ricci in his eminent, glossy art periodical, FMR in 1984. Today, we can purchase large prints reproduced from some of Aloys Zötl's charming works.

©M-J de Mesterton 2011

Aloys Zötl

Reinfried Marass of Austria

Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor is today's lyric opera Live from the Met.

Iphigénie en Tauride 1:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time

Saturday, February 26th

11:00 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time

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Ancient Greek Vase at the Louvre

The vase depicts Orestes and Pylades meeting Iphigenia in Tauris.

The British pronounce Iphigénia "IffijennAYah"

If you wish to pronounce it the original Greek way, it is "eefeeYEN-yah."

~~M-J~~

Placido Domingo in the Last Act of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra: VIDEO

TODAY, LIVE from the METROPOLITAN OPERA, NEW YORK CITY:

another beautiful lyric opera by Giuseppe Verdi:

Saturday, February 5th Live from the Met: Simon Boccanegra, by Giuseppe Verdi Starring Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Barbara Frittoli, Ramón Vargas, and Ferruccio Furlanetto.

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1:00 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time

11:00 a.m. Mountain Time

10:00 a.m. Pacific Time

Edouard Manet

Live at the Metropolitan Opera today: Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto.

Tune in to KHFM on the internet to Listen Llive.

Live at the Metropolitan Opera today: Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata

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Some of the world's most beautiful music is heard in La Traviata.

This lovely and sad opera was  based upon a French story by Alexandre Dumas, "La Dame aux Camélias."

In a search for color paintings on Google...M-J de Mesterton's big rock-and-gem painting, "Color-Field" topped the list today, and showed up as a large photo on the web results page.