Top Cultural Picks this weekend in LA- Sept 21, 22nd

This weekend is a classic-filled Cultural Cocktail: a dose of outdoor Shakespeare, 1 part LA Chamber Music, and 1 Part Greek Tragedy at the Getty Villa!  Enjoy! Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus; new translation by Joel Agee Directed by Travis Preston Thursdays–Saturdays, September 5–28 8:00 p.m. Getty Villa, the Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater. 17985 Pacific Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades, CA .For information…

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Top Picks this week in LA

This weekend’s Cultural Cocktail recipe: an apéritif of Carmen, 1 Oz. California History, and 2 Doses of Czech music. Enjoy! Cultural Cocktail Hour® is a registered Trademark LA Opera Performs Arias from Carmen *Free* September 12 7-8:30 pm  One Colorado Courtyard, Pasadena. 24 E Union St  Pasadena, CA 91103(626) 564-1066 Two 30-minute performances at 7pm & 8pm For more information please see: http://www.onecolorado.com/events-at-one-colorado/ Photo Credit:  Robert Millard, LA Opera’s…

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In the news: “Fake” Van Gogh determined to be real

In an unusual twist, the very same museum that declared a Van Gogh painting to be fake in 1991 now declares it to be an authenticated work by the Dutch master. The 1888 landscape painting “Sunset at Montmajour,” has now been hailed by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam as a “high point” of Van Gogh’s “artistic achievement.” “A discovery…

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Cultural Events LA September 6-7

This weekend’s Cultural Cocktail recipe includes a Wagnerian Love Letter and Medieval Saints Cultural Cocktail Hour® is a registered Trademark KUSC’s Brian Lauritzen hosts an in-depth look at Wagner’s private, musical love letter to his wife in Salastina Society’s season-opening MASTERPIECE DISCOVERY: THE SIEGFRIED IDYLL Sat. Sept 7th. 8 pm Thayer Hall. Colburn School 200 South Grand Avenue, LA, CA 90012 The concert opens with composer-in-residence…

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Stendhal Syndrome in Florence

by Leticia Marie Sanchez Visiting Florence in 1817, the French novelist Stendhal found himself overwhelmed inside Santa Croce. The proximity to Giotto frescoes and Michelangelo’s tomb drove him to a state of delicious delirium. “I was in a sort of ecstasy…Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty … I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations…

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Seek and You Shall Find..at the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

Photography and text © 2013 Leticia Marie Sanchez Cultural Cocktail Hour® is a registered trademark Photo, Left: Giorgio Vasari, The battle of Marciano in Val di Chiana, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence Inside the Palazzo Vecchio, one can stroll through the Salone dei Cinquecento. This imposing hall for the five hundred members of Florence’s Grand Council can inspire Stendhal-like syndrome in those who view…

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Greetings from Umbria!

Photography and text © 2013 Leticia Marie Sanchez Cultural Cocktail Hour® is a registered trademark Greetings from Umbria! Artists including Cimabue, Giotto, Perugino, Fillipo Lippi, and Piero della Francesca spent time in this verdant oasis. How could they not be inspired? Even the crickets in Umbria are creative types, performing a rigorous daily and nightly symphony. Insomniacs needing a…

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St. Francis and the Cappuccino

Photography and text © 2013 Leticia Marie Sanchez Cultural Cocktail Hour® is a registered trademark Okay, so this photo isn’t a cappuccino. But an espresso macchiato from Badia a Coltibuono, Gaiole In Chianti (where I had the most scrumptious Aubergine Terrine on the planet, but I digress…) After years of living as a fashionista playboy, St. Francis took a…

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Cultural Cocktail Hour heads to Umbria

Cultural Cocktail Hour heads this summer to Umbria, which is known as Il cuore verde d’Italia‘, “The Green Heart of Italy.” Check back in September for photography from Umbria, including the Cathedral of Saint Francis of Assisi, seen in the photo at the left. In the meantime, please enjoy this excerpt of a prayer attributed to Saint Francis. “Make me…

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