There's an old expression (extrapolated from Greek granddaddy Aesop) that postulates, "Don't judge a book by it's cover."
Haaaaa. C'mon.
The other day as we were reading the July/August double-issue of Auditorium Magazine with its mixed media, artfully-commissioned cover (inspired by Siegfried's Nothung fetish -- "stiff and firm it is, masterful the hard steel: soon it will draw hot blood!"), we looked up from the pages and there was Cartier ice around our neck, statement Nikes on our feet and Madonna's masseuse docked her iPod to vintage Massive Attack and offered us tantric massage. That never happens when we read The Economist!
With the launch of its English edition in April, Auditorium brings magazine milieu back to an era that merited back-edition archives as collectibles. We discovered it in April at the ROH gift shop when we visited London (it's also stocked in NYC at the 57th Street Rizzoli) and we were charmed by its glossy covers and thick-as-thieves matte paper stock in large format, but we stayed for its cutting-edge graphic design, genre-killing content and juicy exclusives/collaborations. Between editions, we're hooked on editor-in-chief Desmond Chewyn's postcards from the world's most covetable performing arts venues.
And now, as proud contributor, we point you to a couple reviews that we've recently penned.
Men Behaving Badly: From Zürich, we loved Tatjana Gürbaca's youthful, new Rigoletto at Opernhaus Zürich's Zürcher Festspiele -- modulated, modern and faithful to the libretto with Fabio Luisi's meticulous packaging and Saimir Pirgu's stellar Duke.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: From La Scala, we endured Un ballo in maschera under Daniele Rustioni's anemic baton, much in need of beef & iron, in Damiano Michieletto's (dramaturgically patriotic) update, which was wrathfully-contested by Milan's public.