Karita Mattila has noticed something curious lately. When her rehearsals run longer than those of junior colleagues, they tend to stick around and watch. “It brings to mind when I was a student, doing master classes with the great stars or just being in the audience,” she says. “I remember everything those legends said and did. In the 37 years I’ve been in the business, I’ve had a fantastic number of awesome conductors and directors with whom I’ve learned a lot and achieved wonderful results. So I have a lot to give.” READ ON

As creator or subject, the French artist Dora Maar was a part of some of the 20th century’s most arresting images. She gave us the haunting photograph of a manicured hand emerging from a seashell, set against an ominous night sky. Yet in the eyes of Pablo Picasso, her lover, who painted her rather aggressively, she was “the weeping woman.” A central figure in the Surrealist movement of the 1920s and 1930s, Maar developed a status as a muse and self-styled icon that sometimes surpassed her recognition as an artist. READ ON