Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published by “David Yearsley”

Big Oil, Big Opera: Handel at the Met

Handel was born with an umlaut on his name: Händel.  He rubbed it out after he left his native Germany for a sojourn of several years in Italy before emigrating to non-diacritical England in 1711…

Who Needs a Conductor?

One of the longest seconds I ever lived through came just before the beginning the Dies irae from Mozart’s Requiem. The members of the Stanford Chorus crowded onto the risers at the back of the…

Handel Makes War

Yesterday began for me before dawn when I awoke, went downstairs and watched footage of the night sky above Kyiv lit up with the bursts of artillery fire.  Looking out through the kitchen window, I…

People in White Houses Shouldn’t Throw Roger Stones

A grizzled veteran hobbled by bad knees and addled in the head lies on the trainer’s table in the locker room while the Big Game rages out on the field of a state-of-the-art stadium packed…

Danube Blues

On the one-year anniversary of the storming of the U.S. Capitol many were the dire assessments of the state of the American republic. Nor were watchdogs of democracy cheered by the situation across the Atlantic.…

Encanto’s Chart-Topping Enchantments

Beginning with Disney’s first animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs of 1937, the Mouse House’s message has always been about family. That laser beam focus makes for heartwarming storytelling but, more importantly,…

Listening Up To ‘Don’t Look Up!’

At well over two hours running time, Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up (streaming on Netflix) isn’t exactly a bagatelle, but it mostly retains its satiric lightness and goes by quickly. A holiday film about the…

-