The BroadsheetDAILY – 1/28/22 – New American Opera Now in Performance at Museum of Jewish Heritage

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The Garden Path

New American Opera Now in Performance at Museum of Jewish Heritage

The full cast of “The Garden Of The Finzi-Continis,” a new opera now in performance at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. (credit: Steven Pisano)

The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene is now presenting the New York City Opera’s production of “The Garden Of The Finzi-Continis” at the Museum of Jewish Heritage (36 Battery Place) for eight performances, through February 6.

Directed by Michael Capasso and Richard Stafford, from a libretto by Michael Korie (and sung in English) the production will bring to life Giorgio Bassani’s 1962 novel about an aristocratic Italian-Jewish family, on the eve of World War II, who believe they will be immune to the changes happening around them, but discover too late that no one is untouchable.

The story, which also inspired Vittorio De Sica’s acclaimed 1970 film adaptation, traces the genteel (but ultimately lethal) isolation of an extended family who wall themselves off from the rise of Benito Mussolini, and Italy’s subsequent embrace of Nazi Germany, which makes anti-Semitism the official policy of the country their clan had lived in for centuries.

The production reunites librettist Michael Korie and composer Ricky Ian Gordon, who previously collaborated on a much-praised operatic version of “The Grapes of Wrath.” Mr. Gordon also has a second original opera, “Intimate Apparel,” premiering at Lincoln Center Theater next week.

Mr. Korie also wrote the lyrics to “Flying Over Sunset” (a fictional account of a meeting between Aldous Huxley, Clare Boothe Luce and Cary Grant, who had in common their use of LSD), which also premiered at Lincoln Center Theater in November.

Tickets for “The Garden Of The Finzi-Continis” are available at NYTF.org or by calling the box office 855-449-4658. For additional information, please call 212-655-7653.

Matthew Fenton

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

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Mixed Metrics

Lower Manhattan Rentals Increase in Price, While Condo Sales Drift

A new study from the online real estate database company, StreetEasy, shows that the cost for renting an apartment in three Lower Manhattan neighborhoods spiraled during the fourth quarter of 2021, while the fluctuation in purchase prices was more complicated.

For tenants, median asking rents jumped (relative to the same period one year earlier) by 38.7 percent in the Financial District (to $4,300), 20.8 percent in Tribeca (to $7,700) and 13.1 percent in Battery Park City (to $4,441) per month.

For those wishing to purchase a condominium or cooperative, the picture was more mixed. In Tribeca, the median asking price climbed by 12.5 percent (to $4.49 million), but the median closing prices rose by a more modest 6.6 percent ($3.3 million). In FiDi, the median ask rose by 7.2 percent (to $1.28 million), but median closing prices actually fell by 0.2 percent, to $1.27 million. And in Battery Park City, the median asking price dropped by 8.8 percent (to $1 million), while the median closing price dipped by 13.8 percent (to $844,500).

Eyes to the Sky

January 24 – February 4, 2022

Halfway to spring, be mesmerized by winter stars, captivated by crescent moon, planets

Winter skies are the most inviting to naked eye stargazers, and for including children when the brightest stars in the heavens appear in early evening, before bedtime.

The mighty constellation, Orion the Hunter, floats above the southeast horizon as darkness gathers, by about 6pm. Fiercely twinkling Sirius the Dog Star rises around 5:30pm and appears above obstructed views by 6:30pm. Sirius, the brightest star in Earth’s skies, throws off magnificent flashes of full-spectrum colors. The constellation Canis major, aka the Great Dog, and Orion trace an arc from east-southeast to west-southwest, where they set at about 1:30am. See the brightest stars arrive in the south by about 9pm and over the Hudson River during the nighttime hours.

Groundhog Day, February 2, marks the halfway point between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox.

Baruch Dayan Ha’Emet: Sheldon Silver

Former Assembly Speaker Who Represented Lower Manhattan Before Facing Prison Dies at 77

Sheldon Silver, the longtime Speaker of the State Assembly, who fell from power in 2015 and was imprisoned on federal corruption charges in 2020, died on Monday afternoon at age 77.

First elected to the State legislature in 1976, Mr. Silver represented Lower Manhattan in Albany. After 15 years in the Assembly, he moved up to the chairmanship of its powerful Ways and Means Committee. In 1994 (upon the death of the previous Speaker, Saul Weprin), he was elected to lead the chamber. Less than a year later, Republican George Pataki succeeded longtime Governor Mario Cuomo. That change had the effect of anointing Mr. Silver the most powerful Democratic Party elected official in New York State. Through the tenures of three mayors and six governors, nothing wanted by any occupant of City Hall or the Executive Mansion (from either party) got done without Mr. Silver’s consent.

Chain Reaction

Hundreds of Local Storefronts Remain Rented to Corporate Brands, While Small Businesses Struggle, and Landlords Warehouse Empty Space

A new report from the Center for an Urban Future (CUF), a public policy think tank that uses data-driven research to bring attention to overlooked issues, documents that the proliferation of chain stores in Lower Manhattan has decreased slightly during the past 12 months, while the same tally for the City as whole ticked upward.

For small businesses, the outlook appears to be bleaker. To read more…

De Gustibus

Annual Food Fest Puts Lavish Meals within Reach of Thrifty Epicures

New York’s annual food celebration, Restaurant Week continues for five weeks, until Saturday (February 13).

For those disinclined to venture above Canal Street, the goods news is that of all the 481 establishments participating throughout the City this year, more than five percent are located in Lower Manhattan.

Lower Manhattan Greenmarkets

Tribeca Greenmarket

Greenwich Street & Chambers Street

Every Wednesday & Saturday, 8am-3pm

Food Scrap Collection: Saturdays, 8am-1pm

Open Saturdays and Wednesdays year round

Bowling Green Greenmarket

Green Greenmarket at Bowling Green

Broadway & Whitehall St

Open Tuesday and Thursdays, year-round

Market Hours: 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Compost Program: 8 a.m. – 11 a.m.

The Bowling Green Greenmarket brings fresh offerings from local farms to Lower Manhattan’s historic Bowling Green plaza. Twice a week year-round stop by to load up on the season’s freshest fruit, crisp vegetables, beautiful plants, and freshly baked loaves of bread, quiches, and pot pies.

Greenmarket at the Oculus

Oculus Plaza, Fulton St and Church St

CLOSED FOR THE SEASON

The Outdoor Fulton Stall Market

91 South St., bet. Fulton & John Sts.

212-349-1380 info@fultonstallmarket.org

Fulton Street cobblestones between South and Front Sts. across from McNally Jackson Bookstore.

Locally grown produce from Rogowski Farm, Breezy Hill Orchard, and other farmers and small-batch specialty food products, sold directly by their producers. Producers vary from week to week.

SNAP/EBT/P-EBT, Debit/Credit, and Farmers Market Nutrition Program checks accepted at all farmers markets.

TODAY IN HISTORY

January 28

1986 – Space Shuttle program: STS-51-L mission: Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrates after liftoff, killing all seven astronauts on board.

814 – The death of Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, brings about the accession of his son Louis the Pious as ruler of the Frankish Empire.

1077 – Walk to Canossa: The excommunication of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, is lifted after he humbles himself before Pope Gregory VII at Canossa in Italy.

1547 – Edward VI, the nine-year-old son of Henry VIII, becomes King of England on his father’s death.

1724 – The Russian Academy of Sciences is founded in St. Petersburg by Peter the Great, and implemented by Senate decree. It is called the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences until 1917.

1754 – Sir Horace Walpole coins the word serendipity in a letter to a friend.

1813 – Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is first published in the United Kingdom.

1855 – A locomotive on the Panama Canal Railway runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

1896 – Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent, becomes the first person to be convicted of speeding. He was fined one shilling, plus costs, for speeding at 8 mph (13 km/h), thereby exceeding the contemporary speed limit of 2 mph (3.2 km/h).

1902 – The Carnegie Institution of Washington is founded in Washington, D.C. with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.

1909 – United States troops leave Cuba with the exception of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base after being there since the Spanish–American War.

1938 – The World Land Speed Record on a public road is broken by Rudolf Caracciola in the Mercedes-Benz W195 at a speed of 432.7 kilometres per hour (268.9 mph).

1956 – Elvis Presley makes his first national television appearance.

1958 – The Lego company patents the design of its Lego bricks, still compatible with bricks produced today.

1977 – The first day of the Great Lakes Blizzard of 1977 which dumps 10 feet (3.0 m) of snow in one day in Upstate New York, with Buffalo, Syracuse, Watertown, and surrounding areas are most affected.

1986 – Space Shuttle program: STS-51-L mission: Space Shuttle Challengerdisintegrates after liftoff, killing all seven astronauts on board.

Births

1706 – John Baskerville, English printer and typographer (d. 1775)

1841 – Henry Morton Stanley, Welsh-American explorer and journalist (d. 1904)

1855 – William Seward Burroughs I, American businessman, founded the Burroughs Corporation (d. 1898)

1887 – Arthur Rubinstein, Polish-American pianist and educator (d. 1982)

1900 – Alice Neel, American painter (d. 1984)

1929 – Claes Oldenburg, Swedish-American sculptor and illustrator

1940 – Carlos Slim, Mexican businessman and philanthropist, founded Grupo Carso

Deaths

814 – Charlemagne, Holy Roman emperor (pleurisy;[12] b. 742)

1547 – Henry VIII, king of England (b. 1491)

1938 – Bernd Rosemeyer, German race car driver (b. 1909)

1939 – W. B. Yeats, Irish poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1865)

1976 – Marcel Broodthaers, Belgian painter and poet (b. 1924)

1986 – Space Shuttle Challenger crew

Gregory Jarvis, American captain, engineer, and astronaut (b. 1944)

Christa McAuliffe, American educator and astronaut (b. 1948)

Ronald McNair, American physicist and astronaut (b. 1950)

Ellison Onizuka, American engineer and astronaut (b. 1946)

Judith Resnik, American colonel, engineer, and astronaut (b. 1949)

Dick Scobee, American colonel, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1939)

Michael J. Smith, American captain, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1945)

1988 – Klaus Fuchs, German physicist and politician (b. 1911)

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