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Opera Pick of the Week

Munich’s Bavarian State Opera streams Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, starring American mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey

Splendor in the Grass

The story of how Central Park and its beating heart, the bucolic Sheep Meadow, came to be

Revisionist History

Churchill gets a bad rap for the 1943 Tehran conference, where Roosevelt and Stalin won out. Looking back, the Old Lion might have been right all along

Notes from Underground

Harriet Tubman left behind no written history of her life, but her stories—of the Underground Railroad and the allies she made along the way—live on

Collecting Intelligence

The author and friend of John le Carré’s, whose radio tribute to the espionage writer is out now, traces the arc of le Carré through his most memorable books

Andrea Ferolla’s Sketchbook

Sonic Cinema

When you can’t make it to the movies (or just don’t want to), satisfy your filmic desires with these songs from Lou Reed, Lyle Lovett, Ellen Foley, and more

Dial M for Mail

If Alfred Hitchcock contained multitudes, his films contained infinitudes in the eyes of his viewers, who wrote him too many letters to count

American Onanist

King of the Booksellers

Demián Bichir

The Mexican actor’s roles have ranged from Fidel Castro to one of Tarantino’s “Hateful Eight.” A trio of new films cements him as a master of variety

Are You Savvier than a 16-Year-Old?

More than five million fans follow Sissy Sheridan. What does she know that you don’t? Plus: the great Lego caper, and more

Border Crossing

Alejandro Iñárritu, the Mexican filmmaker behind the Academy Award–winning Birdman and The Revenant, is bringing the immigrant experience to V.R.

Curtain Going Up! (Please?)

Veteran British theater producer Sonia Friedman reveals what a post-pandemic West End will look like

Barry Blitt’s Sketchbook

Dogs—They’re Just Like Us!

Before quarantine puppies, there were Magnum dogs, photogenic canines immortalized alongside their owners by Philippe Halsman, Inge Morath, and others

Advice-by-Numbers

Professor and clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson shares his red-hot rules for life

Opera Pick of the Week

American soprano Julia Bullock presents a virtual recital alongside pianist Laura Poe

One Part Instinct, Two Parts Grit

Sharon Stone discusses sexism in Hollywood, the plastic surgery she didn’t agree to, and a near fistfight with Basic Instinct co-star Michael Douglas

Do You Believe in Magic?

A new book argues that some of the most astonishing findings in social science are little more than smoke and mirrors

Special B

Eric Hanson’s Sketchbook

Famous-Parent Syndrome

Off the Wall

The photographer Horst A. Friedrichs celebrates the magic of independent booksellers and the volumes on their shelves, from the Strand to Shakespeare and Company