Arts And Entertainment

TUESDAY, JULY 18 -more-

Now that Mozart has turned 250, you would think that not much more could be discovered about the world’s most popular and most scrutinized composer. Then, along comes Austrian musicologist Michael Lorenz to dismiss a few old and new Mozartean myths. -more-

To a Californian, there has to be something charming about an opera in which the mysterious stranger who wins the heroine’s heart is a man named Johnson from Sacramento. The Berkeley Opera makes full use of this charm in its production of Puccini’s The Girl of the Golden West, which opened Saturday, with a new English adaptation by David Scott Marley. -more-

FRIDAY, JULY 14 -more-

Summer is the time for Shakespeare in America, and, whether outdoors or in, The Bard’s elusive sense combines best with the fragrance of the season in the comedies. -more-

“Them that’s got will get/Them that’s not will lose ...” Billie Holiday in all her lyric glory, and all her degradation, has been subject for more than a few portrayals over the years. -more-

To be a silent movie fan is to live with a mixture of excitement and despair. It is estimated that more than 80 percent of all films from the silent era are lost, either destroyed by Hollywood studios during the transition to talkies or simply lost to the ravages of time. Original negatives and nitrate prints eventually succumb to chemical decomposition, disintegrating into piles of dust. And what has been lost is not limited to Hollywood movies; documentaries, social films, political films, home movies—a vast trove of footage documenting our social history has simply vanished. -more-