The second act of Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly opens with the aching aria"Un Bel Di," one of the most famous in the Italian repertoire. Onstage, an abandoned young woman sings longingly for "one fine day" when her lover might return to her and their young son in Nagasaki, Japan.
This Veterans Day, NPR Books went into the archives to find stories of combat and coping. A mother describes the emotional minefield of having a child at war, a Marine writes a memoir of a mortuary, and a photojournalist pays tribute to two centuries of Native-Americans in the military.
On-air challenge: Sunday is Veterans Day, so we have a game of categories based on flags. Given some categories, for each one name something in the category beginning with each of the letters F, L, A, G and S.
For example, if the category were chemical elements, you might say fluorine, lead, argon, gold and sulfur.
One hundred fifty years ago today, Giuseppe Verdi first mounted his opera La Forza del Destino ("The Force of Destiny") on a stage in St. Petersburg, Russia. Today, La Forza is considered one of Verdi's masterpieces, but it wasn't always that way. The story of Don Alvaro, whose love for the aristocratic Leonora incurs the wrath of her family, is violent and chaotic, and it flopped on its first run.
Nickelback's Chad Kroeger performs during halftime of a Canadian football game in Vancouver. On the band's own tours, expensive pyrotechnics are more rare.
Nickelback. The name itself is musical shorthand for everything music aficionados love to hate about modern rock.
But with more than 50 million record sales worldwide and a lead singer who earns $10 million a year, the band is laughing all the way to the bank — as reporter Ben Paynter describes in Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine.
Katherine Marsh worked as a writer forRolling Stone and an editor at The New Republic. She won an Edgar Award in 2006 for The Night Tourist, a young adult mystery.
When Katherine Marsh was a young girl, she was mesmerized by the dwarfs of Diego Velazquez's paintings. Years later, that obsession inspired Jepp, Who Defied the Stars, her latest novel for young adults.
Marsh joins NPR's Guy Raz to discuss her book, which is rooted in history, yet speckled with fantasy. It carries her readers to the Spanish Netherlands in the late 16th century to tell the coming-of-age story of Jepp of Astraveld.
In the new movie Lincoln, actor Daniel Day-Lewis is getting a lot of attention for his spot-on portrayal of the 16th president. But Ben Burtt, the sound designer, also deserves credit for the film's authenticity. You may not know his name, but you surely know his work.
Burtt is something of a legend in the movie sound world. He has won numerous Oscars, including for his work on Star Wars.
Burtt invented that iconic swoosh of the light saber, using the hum of an old projector and the buzz of a television set.
Projectionist Ed Ko at New York City's Film Forum. Ed has been projecting at Film Forum longer than any other projectionist there.
Credit Joseph O. Holmes
Projectionist Ed Ko at New York City's Film Forum. Ed has been projecting at Film Forum longer than any other projectionist there.
Credit / Joseph O. Holmes
Projector in the booth at Jackson Heights Cinema in Queens, N.Y., a former Bollywood theater that now shows many films subtitled in Spanish.
Credit / Joseph O. Holmes
Projectionist and repairman Bryan Diego at Brooklyn Heights Cinema, which is scheduled to close later this year because the building will be demolished.
Credit / Joseph O. Holmes
Projectionist Joe Lamboy at the Warwick Drive-In, Warwick, N.Y.
Credit / Joseph O. Holmes
Projectionist Michael Lefanto at Film Forum. Michael works in many New York City booths, including at the Museum of Modern Art.
Credit / Joseph O. Holmes
Projectionist Nadeem Malik at the Bombay Theater, Flushing, N.Y.
Credit / Joseph O. Holmes
Manager Tushar Kshatriya in the booth of the Bombay Theater.
Credit / Joseph O. Holmes
Projectionist Eva von Schweinitz at Film Forum.
Credit / Joseph O. Holmes
Projectionist Chris Saxe at the Avon Theater, Stamford, Conn.
Credit / Joseph O. Holmes
Projectionist Jacob Weiner at Anthology Film Archives in New York City.
Credit / Joseph O. Holmes
Projectionist Noel McCarthy at the Chelsea Clearview theater in New York.
Credit / Joseph O. Holmes
Editing table at the Avon Theater, Stamford, Conn. The table is currently stacked with trailers, or, as they're now known, previews.
Credit / Joseph O. Holmes
Projectionist Tim King at Cinema Arts Center, Huntington, N.Y.
Credit / Joseph O. Holmes
Projectionist Tom Doyle at the Avon Theater, Stamford, Conn.
Credit / Joseph O. Holmes
The booth at the Warwick Drive-In, Warwick, N.Y. The booth is its own little screening room; note the digital projector mounted in the ceiling.
Credit / Joseph O. Holmes
The booth at the Ritz Theater in Muncy, Pa. "I went to Saturday matinees at the Ritz from the time I was 6 or 7 years old," writes Holmes. "The Ritz has shown movies almost continuously since the 1920s but may not last much longer, since the cost of converting to digital is prohibitive on the theater's limited income."
Originally published on Sat November 10, 2012 5:02 pm
Do you ever look up at the tiny window at the back of the movie theater and wonder who's up there? Photographer Joseph O. Holmes has followed the flickering light to find out.
"I've always had this fascination with private work spaces," he says on the phone.
Superstorm Sandy has put the topic of climate change front and center once again.
Just after Sandy staggered his city, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote "Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be — given this week's devastation — should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action."
Lyle Talbot was born in 1902, just around the time when movies were getting started. He joined a traveling carnival, toured in theater troupes and wound up in Hollywood, where he became a reliable B-movie player. Eventually, Talbot became a fixture of family-friendly television on Leave It to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet.
