CONSERVATISM'S LESSON NUMBER ONE:

Behold - women who have waists (Elizabeth Wellington, 2/13/08, Philadelphia Inquirer)

The collections presented under the Bryant Park tents last week took inspiration from several previous decades in fashion.But whether designers chose belts or corsets, strategically placed embroidery or tucking shirts into pants, the emphasis was on the natural waistline. [...]

Other designers such as Peter Som, Diane von Furstenberg, the eternally youthful Max Azria and former Main Liners Tory Burch and Behnaz Sarafpour opted to leave the girly and focus on the more mature silhouette.

"It's all about women looking like women," Som said. "No more baby dolls or shapeless silhouettes. Let's celebrate the female body, not disguise it."

"It seems weird to say it, but classic is now trendy," said Waleed Khairzada, lead designer for Cynthia Steffe. "There is no doubt that we are bringing the shapes back closer to the body, and highlighting the waist makes things less sporty and casual. It's a return of a polished look."

Just stick to classic and the trends will always come back to you.

MORE:
New 'Cyrano' defies the odds, scores a success (David Patrick Stearns, 2/13/08, Philadelphia Inquirer)

The story of the poetic but unattractive musketeer who ghostwrites letters to the woman he secretly loves has never been out of favor, though Franco Alfano's opera has tired out the franchise a bit. This latest version is by David DiChiera, who is a veteran Detroit impresario, not an established composer; also, he enlisted an orchestrator - standard practice on Broadway but Strike One in opera. Uncharitable opinions wafted out of dress rehearsal and onto the Internet.

On Friday, lowered expectations carried through a lumpy opening scene, after which DiChiera's Cyrano proved as good as Alfano's, and behaved like the opera any number of fine 19th-century composers never got around to - but should have.

Philosophically speaking, composing 19th-century music in the 21st is an act of counterfeiting. But as counterfeit operas go, this is the real thing. Many composers try to turn back the clock a century; none I've heard has done so as convincingly as DiChiera.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 4, 2009 6:11 AM