Names and faces
Feminist leader Gloria Steinem tried her hand at a little stand-up comedy, taking the mic at a Manhattan club in the spirit of “laughing our way to the revolution.” Steinem joined a group of female comics performing at a high-spirited fundraiser Wednesday night at Carolines on Broadway for the nonprofit Ms. Foundation for Women, which works toward social, economic and reproductive justice. The gathering was dubbed “Laughter Is the Best Resistance.” Not surprisingly, the stunning wave of sexual misconduct allegations against powerful men — which Wednesday morning included the sudden downfall of NBC’s Today show host Matt Lauer — was a frequent subject of discussion. Caroline Hirsch, the club’s owner, noted in her remarks that Steinem had often spoken of laughing on the way to the revolution. “We’re laughing today,” Hirsch said pointedly, as the audience cheered. Onstage, Steinem riffed on the French Revolution and its potential parallels to the current political and social climate, equating President Donald Trump with the French king. But she earned her biggest laugh with a joke about Melania Trump: “A reporter asked me what I would say to Melania. I said, ‘I have a guest room.’” Offstage, the feminist author — a frequent Trump critic — attributed the sudden cultural spotlight on sexual misconduct in part to the president himself. “We should not neglect the fact that with this election, people are so fed up and outraged that there’s an admitted, obvious sexual harasser in the White House,” she said in an interview, “that this is part of what has lit a fire under the straw that was piling up for a long time.”
Milan’s La Scala said that a shoulder operation is forcing conductor Zubin Mehta to take a break for at least three months and the famed opera house to change its lineup. The 81-year-old Mehta plans to retire next fall from his position as music director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. On Wednesday, La Scala officials announced it would use substitute conductors for a concert of waltzes and a performance of the Strauss opera Die Fledermaus scheduled for January. A third engagement, a benefit concert for a foundation in India scheduled for February, will be postponed until Mehta is well enough to conduct. Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck, the music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, will conduct the waltzes. German conductor Cornelius Meister, artistic director of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, will take over Die Fledermaus.