The Vargas Blog

The maximalism of Baz Luhrmann can easily put you off. He doesn't so much adapt F. Scott Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby as he hi...

Today, May 22, we celebrate the birth of Richard Wagner .  The composer was born in Leipzig, Germany in 1813, 200 years ago today.  But ho...

In the twilight of his years Maurizio Pollini continues to amaze with the aristocratic virtuosity and technical dexterity that has garner...

The Metropolitan Opera is in the middle of presenting three Ring Cycles this spring, and this afternoon was the premiere of Siegfried , t...

The American Composers Orchestra concert on Friday evening at Carnegie's Zankel auditorium, under the direction of George Manahan , e...

If you are a Spanish filmmaker and you are going to update Snow White and the Seven Dwarves you might as well pull all the stops and set ...

The New York Times Sunday magazine has a very interesting, in-depth article on Peter Gelb 's tenure as the Metropolitan Opera 's...

  Wieland Wagner ushered in the era of the director in opera with the reopening of the Bayreuth Festival in 1951.   His historic p...

 When I heard Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival this summer, I wrote on this blog that the experience was like listening to the work for...

When militants stormed the United States embassy in Tehran in 1979 in retaliation for the U.S. sheltering the deposed Shah of Iran, more t...

When Dr. King Schultz ( Christoph Waltz ) learns that the slave Django ( Jamie Foxx ) is married to a woman named Broomhilda ( Kerry Washi...

Lincoln begins with a chaotic battle from the middle of the Civil War: brother against brother in hand-to hand butchery.  A scene that re...

The Philarmonia Orchestra under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen visited New York City earlier this week and presented two performances at...

When The Tempest , Thomas Adès 's opera based on Shakespeare 's play of the same name, premiered at the Royal Op...

In Robert Zemeckis 's excellent new film Flight , Denzel Washington portrays Captain Whip Whitaker, an airline pilot whose experience...

I've begun to dread the words "a brilliant new restoration," or "a brilliant new 35 millimeter print," when it com...

I'm watching the UK release of the latest restoration of David Lean 's Lawrence of Arabia on Blu-Ray, and I have to report that I...

Last year the New York Film Festival presented a stunning restoration of 1959's Ben Hur .  Watching it on the screen for the second t...

Beyond the Hills ( După Dealuri ) , Christian Mungiu 's outstanding new film dramatizes real life events that occurred less than a d...

While Life of Pi takes pleasure in showing us the toll of the sea on a shipwrecked boy, Amour , the winner of the Palme d'Or at this ...