For the ultimate love story, Romeo and Juliet, tickets go on sale tomorrow

The underlying connection was closed: a connection that was expected to be kept active was terminated by the server.Shakespeare's timeless, tragic love story receives new life this spring when Mario Radacovsky premieres his Romeo & Juliet with the Grand Rapids Ballet Company.

Tickets for this special production go on sale tomorrow at 10 a.m. You can get tickets through the Ballet Box Office, 341 Ellsworth SW, or through Ticketmaster.

Radacovsky's ballet centers on the two lovers ' struggle with the social barrier that restricted and insulated them from childhood ... and was broken for love. Set to the lush Prokofiev score, this passionate production contrasts the concept of duality through light and dark and the simplicity of sets and costumes, embracing bright splashes of color to explore the fate of two star-cross'd lovers.

Romeo & Juliet runs May 13-15 and 20-22 at the Peter Martin Wege Theatre, 341 Ellsworth SW. Tickets are $ 40/$ 30/general, seniors, and $ 20/children. For more information, visit the ballet's website.

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Books of novels

I was surprised that the genre romance doesn't seem to be an area recognised in many books of literature that researched. In fact in a book, 1001 books you must read before you die, there was a genre rural but no genre romance.

During our lunch last Sunday's family, I asked members of my family, who are all avid readers and writers on different themes for your favorite romance writer. My wife, Neni STA. Cruz Romana, which is a well-known writer, said his favorite was gone with the wind. Those who read the book or seen the movie will remember that famous scene when the heroine, Scarlett O'Hara, finally declares her love to the hero who had been its all throughout the novel. Then came the answer from Rhett Butler: "frankly, my dear I don't give a damn!"

My daughter Tanya Cross Duldulao chose Wuthering Heights, the only novel written by Emily Bronte. The novel focuses on the doomed love between Hamlet, an orphan tormented and Catherine Earnshaw, daughter of vain and intentional of their benefactor. Her novel childhood transforms a passionate love, when they meet again in his adult life. But class differences to keep them separate and deathbed scene of Catarina is a telling representation of why love hurts.

My son Roel, which is ending his m.a. in creative writing in La Salle, chose which tender is the Night by f. Scott Fitzgerald. This novel is a story of two American expatriates living in France during the 1920s, a talented young psychiatrist, Dick Diver and the rich, disturbed patient who became his wife. In this tragic tale of romance, your lifestyle lush began to destroy the diver, like alcohol, infidelities, mental illness and asserts that their hopes.

Personally I remember only one book with romantic love as the theme of reading. This was the story of love by Erich Segal. I still remember the line "Love is never to say you're sorry."

These four books, Gone With the Wind, Wuthering Heights, the tender is the night and the story of love, have one thing in common. They all have tragic endings where the hero and heroine do not end up with others. I would have thought that novels should have happy endings.

But then I remember that love stories of the greatest English writer, William Shakespeare, also were tragedies. The classic story of two Star-Crossed Lovers Romeo and Juliet, is perhaps the most romantic story of all time. Romeo and Juliet saw their love ruined by circumstances outside their control, owned by two families who hate reasons overlooked. Have paid the ultimate price for the brief, intense and pure love that they shared. This same theme has been repeated even in many modern dramas like West Side Story.

Of course, I have read many books where the novel was intertwined with the story. Novels as for whom the bell tolls by Ernest Hemingway, East of Eden, John Steinbeck and Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Always thought the Hunchback of Notre Dame (in English), also from Hugo, was a history major but tragic love story of hunchbacked Quasimodo Bell touch, whose unrequited love for the Gypsy dancer Emerald ends very badly, makes me feel that the novel did not have a happy ending, although Emerald met with his "true love". Sometimes I wonder if unable Quasimodo win the love of the girl even if he was so physically deformed. After all, that is what happened in the fairytale beauty and the beast.

But these books are generally included in the genre of historical fiction.

However, if we stretch our imagination a little, romantic novels and legends that may not be books purely romantic, but where the love story has a happy ending.

In the Odyssey of Homer, the hero Ulysses is finally reunited with his beloved Queen Penelope after many years of battles and adventures. In the book of love in the time of cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the story is about Florentino Ariza, who expects 50 for his first love. After his beloved husband passes away, Ariza redeclares his passion and is immediately rejected by the widow raging. But Ariza strengthens its efforts and this love of time, after 50 years (!) finally conquers all, including a cholera epidemic.

Maybe this week, it is better to remember the love stories with happy endings. After all, the writer Christopher Morley once said: "if all we found that we had only five minutes to say everything I wanted to say, every telephone booth would be occupied by people calling other people to tell them that he loved him.

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Kurdish films featured at! f in Istanbul

Four films Kurds, a classic film and three ones contemporaries about love, loss, conflicts, and what it means to be a woman during the war are being screened this year! f International Independent Film Festival of AFM.

Movies comprise a special section called "openness", which debuted at last year's festival a popular response.

"We are motivated by a belief in the power of film to tell stories very human. People need to listen to each other and getting to know one another, so that a lasting peace, "festival co-director Serra Ciliv said the selection of films selected in the category.

"We show a selection of films from the Kurds for the first time last year under the title" openness, ' that Government efforts with the same name to resolve a long-standing conflict, tragic in mainly Kurdish Southeast, "Ciliv said.

While the Government effort seems to have stopped, the organisers of festivals are "interested in keeping up the pace and so continue this year with a new selection of titles of Kurds," said Ciliv. "Today our theme is about the" other side "of this conflict."

Category brings to audiences of Istanbul in a number of Kurdish cinema films, a movie very young who is still trying to find his voice.

"Last year, had films of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Europe, with a reaction of the audience was incredible," said Ciliv. The selections were packed and audiences had every opportunity to interact with filmmakers. This strengthen our belief in the power of mutual discussion. Hopefully we can build this year. "

This year's selection capabilities that a classic almost a century old, a dark fairy tale, the violent Kandil mountains and two movies that intimate looks at women who chose to join the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK. illegal The four films in the category of "openness" will be displayed only once during the festival.

Iranian "Kandil mountains of Director Taha Karimi" (Kwystani Qandil) has as its backdrop of mountains that claimed tens of thousands of lives of Iran, Turkey and Iraq. Soldiers of these three countries are fighting the PKK for years, with the hope of reconciliation a distant fantasy. The film has three men, ' Prayers Shamal, Tears and Rasool o' Eyeneddin o' Daff, search for his beloved Nesreen, who was lost for many years. This is a film about love and loss in wartime.

Women in wartime

"Women of Mount Ararat" (Les Femmes du Mont Ararat) takes a look at the conflict in Southeast Anatolia and the PKK's refreshingly unique perspective. The film's protagonists are six female PKK fighters who took the mountains as a place of refugees and of freedom. Here, in the Southeast, many women are confronted with extra oppression through traditions imprison them in a mindset not too advanced in the middle ages, with violence, often being used to "fix". Women in this unit female singles are not your typical "Steel Magnolias", as they are constantly in motion on mountaintop. Camera from French Director Erwann Briand takes us on his private moments and intimate conversations, giving a look distressing realities of war from the perspective of women.

Dutch Director Annegriet Wietsma runs his camera in another woman in the heart of the conflict. "Sozdar, she who lives his promise" (Sözdar, Sözünü Ya ayan Kad n) is the story of Nuriye Kesbir, which, for years, refused to marry at the age of 12. She later joined the PKK and 30 years later became a famous leader of the organization. Wietsma follows Kesbir on a journey of a Dutch prison for relentless mountains of northern Iraq. The film is a portrait of Franco and thrilling a woman of no excuse, taking a look at his life and their motives. You don't have to approve, understanding or agreement with Kesbir to become fascinated by it.

Was the last group selection, "Zare", a classic black and white silent film pioneer 1926 by Armenian Hamo Beknazaryan, is the first film to depict the Kurds in the screen. The film is a tragic love story between a Kurdish girl and a shepherd living in the same Kurdish village in the region of Lachin corridor, during the time when the Russian Czarist regime was about to close. Almost a century old, the film appears with musical accompaniment of Kurdish artist Tara Jaff.

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Young musician hoping sax appeal turns into cutting-edge Valley career

To Bradley Fergin, it was easy to decide to be a musician.

I knew I wanted to do something with music since I was a freshman in high school, "he said. I could be as creative as I wanted with music.

This senior teaching music plays saxophone, piano, guitar, drums and sings.

He said he started with piano lessons, there are 19 years and started learning the saxophone when he was in fourth grade.

He got his first saxophone of his uncle, who had stopped playing in school. Fergin still has this instrument.

I was lucky, he said.

Many schools don t have the budget to allow students to play the saxophone, he said. He was given a free of charge.

Fergin now has a collection of three saxophones: his first, he plays in, and that was donated to give a student in need.

Fergin lesson plans, focusing in their own presentations. He said he wants to make his senior recital next semester. It will make the student teaching next year and expects to graduate in may 2012.

For most, he had to learn to play every instrument up to a level of sixth grade.

Right now, Fergin said he has performed at least once a month between their groups. He participates in a classic rock band, a band of New Orleans style, an acoustic duo, sax Quartet SVSU s, SVSU s jazz combo, jazz band, SVSU s and Cardinal singers.

He said that each offers a different style of music.

I like them so that they bring specifically, he said.

He said he is excited by his performance with the street saxophone quartet of the Court of justice. Will be at 7: 30 p.m. Thursday, March 17, in Hall, recital Rhea Miller.

He said he is perfectly comfortable playing saxophone or guitar in bars where is more relaxed.

For SVSU administration here, there's a bit of nervousness, "he said.

Fergin said the ideal backdrop for an intimate performance is something where people liked the music he was playing.

If I could get up to about 20 people who genuinely enjoy jazz, that would be ideal, "he said.

Apart from playing the saxophone, Fergin sings. He will perform in Dido and Aeneas, the first opera to be performed at SVSU. It is a tragic love story of three acts. It's all in English and will show in April.

He said that he discussed with him on whether he should take one year after the first law school, teach or go to graduate school. He decided to try to teach focusing on its own musicality.

My performance is a big part of my life that I have to continue with this, "he said.

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Borders books: a tragic love story

I recently read an interesting column from Floyd of The Dallas Morning News. Jacquielynn about what may be the slow death of brick and mortar Bookstore. Here are my own thoughts.

If you had told me in 1990s that books borders would close many of its stores in North Texas due to bankruptcy would have cried like a baby. I attended a local Dallas frontiers – one that is currently scheduled for the chopping block — with the true devotion, then. VI Gloria Steinem and Norman Mailer provide readings, among others. As a reporter working on a story, I interviewed Anne Rice in a wedding dress black income while she signed books for a couple thousand fake wearing fang fans. (Rice was the wedding dress black, not me). But more than that, I dropped a boatload of money there because the selections of book and music were apparently supplied with me in mind.

Then, when the ' 00s came, I began a torrid romance with Amazon. Not only were book and CD prices significantly cheaper, the selection was insanely wide and deep. Print items that had searched for years were available for sellers. I found myself with interests that I never knew I had thanks to Amazon. The online retailer oft maligned helped me make a person smarter. My fling has quickly become a long-term relationship, and that more or fewer frontiers of dumping.

When I visited my loved once border last year, it was sad. Shelf space had drastically reduced. The selection of music was as good or better at your local Best Buy. The space seemed dominated by sweets, stationery, pens, cards and other non-book news. Borders had gotten dumber (in an attempt to survive), had grown decide and Amazon won (until the next giant online obsoletes). The lesson? Capitalism is unrelenting, but not without its advantages.

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Olde and dear

A business built around the Royal Romance takes our writer back to the days of Kings and Queens.

I have just returned from a weekend tour courtesy of Visitbritain, during which I spent two days in London, a day in Windsor and two days in the bath.

I stayed in Dorchester, Yes, it's fabulous watched Love Story, the musical and walked for hours in cold weather, absorbing the atmosphere of austere beauty and frozen English villages.

I ate in places with names like Hinds head, where I had a vegetarian meal with pea and Mint soup and green pumpkin and spinach pasta.

Whilst my fellow journalists indulged in foods with names like Devils on horseback. And, oh yes, in the best tradition of English, I had puppet lashings of ginger beer!

It was a trip that was supposed to be built around the theme Royal Romance, in line with the April marriage of the Prince William and Kate Middleton.

People walking passing Westminster Abbey, where the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton will take place on 29 April. AP

Therefore, the theme of romantic palaces and castles, the musical (a choice a bit strange as love story is a tragic tale) and dinner at some of the favorite restaurants of couples, like Tom's kitchen.

Also went to Westminster Abbey, where the wedding will take place, although I don t know walking down the aisle on 3000 bodies buried beneath.

As an avid lover of history, this was the perfect trip for me; It turns out that the history of England was one of the subjects who studied extensively, and hear our guide (a monk dressed in black robes) regale us with stories of the monarchy from Plantagenets to the Tudors and the dizzying array of Kings and Queens was gratifiying.

It's not easy to live up to a birthright, inherited or won by conquest and certainly could not have been easy having to kill anyone so many relatives and friends.

Two things that I remembered particularly, going around the Abbey of Westminster had a historical perspective.

The first was the story of Oliver Cromwell, who overthrew the monarchy and became the first Lord protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Three years after Cromwell had died and was buried, his body was unearthed and put on trial by the royalists when they returned to power.

Cromwell's body then was hanged, drawn and quartered and your head stuck in a pique in front of the Abbey of Westminster for 25 years as a warning not to go against the monarchy. Barbaric, but necessary then. Now, of course, that would be unthinkable!

The second was the grave of my favorite English Queen, Queen Elizabeth i. If you know your English story, she had her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scotland, beheaded.

The irony of all this is that as Elizabeth had no heir, son of Mary s, King James VI of Scotland, went on to become King of England and Ireland.

The greatest irony is that James had his tomb of mother's extended so that it was greater than Elizabeth n.

Kensington Palace is undergoing renovation won't be ready until 2012 but there is an exhibition delicious there now called the enchanted Palace.

If you like princesses, you shouldn t miss this that takes you through an interactive exhibition with seven dancing princesses; visitors get to try to discover who are the princesses different throughout the ages.

I don t want to spoil it for those who plan to check out the exhibition, but suffice to say, I loved the story, the dresses and the music, especially the tragic poignancy of everything. Princesses, like the rest of us, don t always live happily-ever-after.

Britain really doesn't need any introduction as Malaysia is fairly anglophile and London remains a favourite place for those who have studied or traveled there.

But it's interesting to see the city from the point of view tourist s again, as sometimes I think that the United Kingdom, for many, means simply shopping in London.

What was good about my trip was that it was a little different from my usual travel, as fed my love for history. Will dwell on this, especially bathroom, my favorite place in another article soon.

I m out of Hong Kong then for the reopening of the Dior store s Peking Road and will begin to take a look at the collection spring/summer 2011.

Isn t it interesting as I begin to move from centuries of tradition and history for something truly current, as what you should have in your wardrobe this season?

Life must be like that a journey of unpredictability and contrasts.

Dzireena Mahadzir is still in the sun never sets on the British Empire mode and would love to have time for more afternoon teas.

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Tragic love-package online

CIO-CIO-SAN followed his heart, but she trusted all the others. Japanese geisha of 15 years, known as Butterfly, married U.S. Navy Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton out of love. But Pinkerton, butterfly was a detour, a mere toy. Giacomo Puccini Madama Butterfly, one of the indisputable masterpieces of opera, tells the tragic love story.

Opera New Jersey and New Jersey Symphony Orchestra presents Madama Butterfly at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton 4 February and PERFORMANCES were GIVEN at in Newark Feb 11, ... Soprano Inna Los performs the role of the title character, joined by tenor Scott Piper as Pinkerton, baritone Todd Thomas as Sharpless, mezzo-soprano Vanessa Cariddi as Suzuki, tenor Matthew Surapine as a matchmaker Goro and bass Jeremy Milner as The Red brass. Valery Ryvkin leads and David Grabarkewitz, General and artistic director of Opera of El Paso, is Director of the scene. Performance will be sung in Italian with English supertitles.

The drama begins when Pinkerton organizes purchasing a bride Japanese in Nagasaki. It takes a 999-year lease on a House overlooking the harbour. Grant and his marriage to conveniently butterfly can be canceled one month in advance. Butterfly loves Pinkerton both she renounces his ancestral religion of Buddhism and is rejected by her family. Pinkerton treats marriage loosely, however and has every intention of marrying an American woman, when he returns home. For him, butterfly is not a real human being with feelings that matter.

Ms. Los, a singer from Moldova who recently moved from Austria to New York, will debut with Opera New Jersey. Firstly, she assumed the role of Cio-Cio-San in the Savonlinna Festival in Finland during the summer. Tests leading up to the performance of Opera New Jersey, Ms. Los gained a new perspective of the title character. "The role is to develop and getting deeper psychologically," she says.

The role is a challenge that requires persistence and a loud voice that might end up with a 55-piece Orchestra. Since Butterfly arrives onstage in the Middle 1 Act, she hardly leaves him for acts two and a half years. Besides having the vocal chops, the singer needs to convincingly portray a young. "It is difficult to perform and difficult to sing, but it is an amazing role and I love it with all my soul," Ms. Los says.

The first act electric comes to an end with the famous love Duet of opera, which lasts longer than 15 minutes. "Butterfly leads and provokes Pinkerton together this amazing musical climax — pardon the pun — before going to bed," says Mr. Grabarkewitz, Opera New Jersey audiences who can remember how Director marriage of Figaro company in 2005 and Elixir of love in 2006. "It is so exciting."

When the curtain opens in Act 2, Pinkerton has been away for three years, but remains hopeful butterfly that he will come again as promised. As Butterfly sings "ma makes" and "tornerà" — it will return — it breaks the heart Ms. Los. Ms. Los "is one of the most incredible and emotional moments," he says. "She believes he will return, but we know that in the end it is not true".

The ARIA 'un bel di, "butterfly describes her maid Suzuki as" a beautiful day, "Pinkerton vessel arrives in port and Thunder forth his cannon. Then it will go up the Hill and scream "Butterfly" from a distance. "You know what struck me this time is that essentially all she talks on the world's most famous aria un Bel Erh ... actually happens," says Mr. Grabarkewitz, who directed Madama Butterfly multiple times for the New York City Opera, where he is resident Director. Only one thing is different — there is perfect in this world, but without butterfly on it. "Is brutally tragic," he says, "and this production interprets this idea".

In 2005, Mr. Grabarkewitz traveled with NYCO for its production of Madama Butterfly tourism in Japan. "I walked into that with a little anxiety," he says, whereas the Opera is filled with historical inaccuracies about the country. Puccini aimed to bring the exoticism of Japan to Western audiences, but his portrait more authentic than was imagined. "Stagehands in Tokyo laughed when the geishas out because they were so high," recalls Mr. Grabarkewitz. "They had never seen geishas who great".

Under his direction of the stage, Live From Lincoln Center telecast of NYCO of Madama Butterfly yielded 2008 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding special class programs: music/classical dance. "

Since the Opera Madama Butterfly is more held in North America, one would imagine is a challenge to make fresh sensation always production, but Mr. Grabarkewitz says that's not the case. More importantly, as Director, he shall ensure that the story seems to unfold spontaneously before the eyes of viewers. "Immediacy is the soul of live theatre".

Suzuki, Sharpless (Consul of the United States) and marriage broker Goro all make some effort to convince butterfly to move on, but she refuses to accept the reality. Their families, which would have more weight in convincing to move on, everyone has deserted her. It is left to go toward a tragic end with a little help.

In moments that butterfly finally realizes that Pinkerton doesn't come into it, and that he has a new American wife, Puccini crafted score in a way that audiences it feel all the emotions. She asks questions that are met with silence and silences the members of the public can be often heard crying. Although Pinkerton feel sadness and sorrow as Opera nears its tragic outcome, is too little, too late. "Pucinni knew how to take water of people with your writing," says Mr. Grabarkewitz.

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