The Man Who Knows Don Giovanni
On the eve of a new production in Turin, master maestro Riccardo Muti unlocks the hero’s secrets
A Class Act
The producing artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater pays tribute to his friend James McMullan, a brilliant artist who has designed its posters for nearly four decades
Crime Pays
He’s written 37 books and sold more than 80 million copies—yet The New York Times still won’t give Michael Connelly’s well-crafted and timely whodunits a proper review
Dreams in Progress
A new book celebrates Hollywood’s greatest behind-the-scenes photographer
The Power and the Glory
In 1985, G.E. purchased RCA for $6.3 billion in cash, then the largest M&A deal of all time. That G.E. was actually buying back a business it had started 65 years earlier was largely forgotten
Hollywood’s Lost Stories Come to Light
Sam Wasson discusses a new oral history of movies, told by the people who made them
Broken Images
T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” is the rare modernist masterpiece that still feels modern
The Secret Life of Hotels
Before doing the Madeline children’s books and the murals for New York’s Carlyle-hotel bar, Ludwig Bemelmans worked at the Ritz—and kept notes
The Bike Picture
How a long-haired band of outsiders with a 16-mm. camera, $300,000, and “a hell of an idea” re-invented American movies with Easy Rider
Into the Maelstrom
Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades burns like a fever dream in the hands of Nathalie Stutzman, contralto turned star conductor
Not Your Father’s Ghostwriter
Unfortunately for the royal family, J. R. Moehringer, Prince Harry’s ghostwriter, specializes in damaged father-son relationships
Out of Step
While researching his book about the dance company Ballet Russes, Rupert Christiansen stumbled upon a dance critic’s account of their awkward interview
Everybody’s Talkin’
How a disruptive new technology—sound—brought an end to the silent era and gave rise to the studio system. An exclusive excerpt from Hollywood: The Oral History
A Weight on Her Shoulders
The director Nanette Burstein’s new docuseries, Killer Sally, offers a nuanced look at the bodybuilder Sally McNeil’s 1995 murder of her abusive husband
Bono Still Hasn’t Found What He’s Looking For
The U2 front man’s new memoir is romantic, sincere, and self-effacing. More than an inventory of rock ’n’ roll high jinks, it reveals how deep the trauma of losing his mother at just 14 sits, even today
Messing with Perfection
In the latest affront to musical history, Cat Power is covering Bob Dylan’s 1966 concert at the Royal Albert Hall
